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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE NEW WORLD 



WITH OTHER VERSE 



BY 
LOUIS JAMES BLOCK 




1^Z%%^-CUL 



G. p. PUTNAM'S SONS 



NEW YORK 
27 West Twenty-third Street 



LONDON 
24 Bedford Street, Strand 



)z ^nichjrfaochtr ^rtss 
1895 



Copyright, 1895 

BY 

LOUIS JAMES BLOCK 



Ube Iknicftecboclser ipre8d» mevp l^otk 



TO 

EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN 

POET, CRITIC, FRIEND OF POETS 

THIS BOOK 

IS ADMIRINGLY AND LOYALLY INSCRIBED 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

The Friendship of the Faiths . . . . i 
Last Movement of the Symphony. (Allegro 

Maestoso) 19 

Goethe 21 

Revelation 42 

Dante 43 

Protagoras 51 

Plato 53 

Orpheus .72 

David Swing 75 

The Garden Where there is no Winter . . 78 

James Russell Lowell 79 

Sleep 82 

Walt Whitman 84 

Drinking Song 87 

Alice Gary 88 

Epicedium 8g 

Edmund Clarence Stedman 91 

At Every Crisis 93 

Roses 97 

The New World . 99 



NOTE. 

The Friendship of the Faiths was read in part at the 
Parliament of Religions, held in Chicago during the month of 
September, 1893. 

The New World was published in the summer of 1893, 
and is reproduced here as it is now otherwise out of print. 
When it first saw the light of day, it was called El Nuevo 
Mundo, but I have thought best to translate the title. 



THE FRIENDSHIP OF THE FAITHS 



THE FRIENDSHIP OF THE FAITHS. 

I. 



T 



HE voice of the Soul to the Great and High 
" I know you for Life of my life, 
I know you for Light of mine eyes, 
I long for your infinite calm ; 
Forth from the storm and the strife, 
The rumor of days and the blackness of sky. 
The rush of the manifold cries, 
I would fleet to the realm where hope 
Finds builded and shaped her uttermost scope,. 
To the region afar where your touch and brow 
Fill all the winds with perfume and balm, 
The towers not wrought of hands, 
The heart's imperishable now. 
The achievement's marvellous lands. 
I know from your bosom I came. 
Your secret of love and of flame ; 
I long through the cloud-swept passage of night 
For the clear resurgence of you and of light ; 
I feel your breath on my deepest of will ; 
I know you near whatso darkness I tread, 
I see you beside my sleepless bed, 

3 



4 The Friendship of the Fait J is. 

I answer your life and its wondrous thrill. 
Through all the ages' turmoil have I yearned to 

you, 
Through all the periods have I prayed to you, 
From depth of strangest sorrows have I burned to 

you. 
From farthest paths my supplications have been 

made to you. 
How have I ever sought you, 
Down what dim streams and through what mountain 

passes. 
The flight of the bright sun across the stretching 

skies. 
In meadow lands amid lush grasses. 
In mine own chasms of aspiration. 
And loftiest thought's world-circling peace ; 
Yet in what shape soe'er I wrought you, 
Calling upon you with what pain-impassioned cries^ 
Seeking your height of shining pure release 
From agony of limitation, 
I knew you for the goal and end 
To which my feet must ever wend, 
I knew you, O Transcendent One, 
As Heart of hearts and Soul of souls. 
Unchanging, perfect, golden-same. 
Master of death and victory won 
Over dark grief that speeds and rolls. 
Helper and Guide and Firm to tame 
The surging nations to your pregnant Will, 
The Strength beneficent that throbs and beats 
Through space's vastness and must still 



The Friendship of the Faiths. 

Past winter's snows and summer's heats 

Lead to the many-portaled city where 

You are the glowing and the girdling air, 

Spirit's attainment and the unison 

Of all you love in joy's completeness unbegun ! 



II. 



Response from the uttermost deeps : 

" Children of mine are you all, 

I bore you forth into the void, 

Forth into Time's unresting hall 

Where the wind of change leaps up and sweeps, 

Where day arises and night is destroyed, 

Where the myriad song awakes and rings 

Of the wide divisive universe of things ; 

I bore you, my manifold sons. 

In a stream that unceasingly runs ; 

I gave you my whole of being 

For your behoof and mastery and seeing ; 

Yea, I gave you the veriest soul of me, 

The innermost might of completeness and self. 

The strength that binds forever in one 

All in the world that is thought and done. 

The source and the promise of liberty ! 

You shall be more than blossom or elf, 

More than the patient growths of the field. 

More than the music the great seas yield. 

More than the suns around which dance 

The jubilant planets, yea, more 

Than gods who know not anguishings sore 



6 The Friendship of the Faiths, 

And dwell forever in dalliance 

With heaven's own glories, unproven, untempted ; 

You shall arise to spirit and truth 

Out of the stark sheer darkness of nought, 

Your destiny woven and wrought 

By strength of will that glows dirempted, 

But gladly given to the Will that is mine ; 

Lo ! from the world's beginning and youth, 

Throughout its latter wonder and glory, 

The joyous, the growing, the dominant story ; 

Clearer the light and the life of me shine, 

Brought to divinest returning splendor. 

My sons becoming myself as attender 

On the fire that is centre and mid, 

On the glow that am I and God, 

A rebuilding fair of the life that was hid 

In every struggling period. 

The soul self-fashioned and an offering free 

On mine altar, Freedom, not Mystery ! " 



III. 



Through the broad field of Time 

The rush and the tumult ran ; 

Subtle and deep the voice from the holier clime 

Spoke in the heart of battling man. 

Clad in the soiling bondages of earth 

He felt within him the surge of a nobler birth. 

The smallest flower that grew. 

The winds that veering and careering blew. 

The stars that covered the midnight sky, 



The Friendship of the Faiths, 7 

The sun in his fiery triumph on high, 

Murmurs that came from his innermost heart, 

Glimpses that shone he knew not whence, 

His own life's gradual pre-eminence, 

His thought's and his will's sure sovereignty, 

Woke him to knowledges fair of all that was yet to 

be. 
The mighty message was the grander part 
Of everything that lived and toiled and sang. 
And everywhere the stronger music rang. 
An all-enveloping glory of revelation 
That should at last bring each uplooking genera- 
tion 
Into the circle its benignance made, 
A rich wide chorus which should purely be 
The constant voice of wise Divinity, 
The purpose which so long had played 
About the slow-unfolding soul 
Risen to clearness and at length, 
In its white beauty and its strength, 
Showing the union of the whole. 
Which life and time must always serve, 
Freedom and worship and calm chastity, 
Suffering borne that the good might be, 
The golden sweep, and clasping curve 
Wherein sweet justice holds all men. 
The single truth that sees its perfectness 
Holding the world as with a soft caress, 
Love that is Manhood finished. 
Life that is Master of the quick and dead ! 



8 The Friendship of the Faiths, 

IV. 

Therefore began the Search, 

Lit by the light within, 

From the depth and darkness of sin, 

From the foulness of earth and the smirch, 

To the high white pureness that has forever been ; 

Heavy the weight of the world upon them, 

Glamour and gloom of the outer have won them, 

Yet the sure instinct turns 

To a fire that fadelessly burns. 

Above and beyond and spiritual-clear 

And tender amid the revel of fear ; 

The rocks and the trees and the serpentine coils 

Hold them amid their toils. 

But the flame shines white 

Above all forms of sense or sight ; 

The sun and the day through shine and cloud 

Bear onward their dreams fulfilled of tears, 

And the light-flecked sea's still fluctuant crowd 

Tosses afar their hopes and their fears ; 

The ghost-world of the dead 

Glimmers and glowers with lure and with dread ; 

The miracle of the strife 

Appals with the savage exuberance of life ; 

Service and song and pain 

Seem the grim paths unto gain. 

And high in the winds and the air 

Images rise both sombre and fair. 

Mixtures of man and of things. 

Monstrous gods and pure, 



The Friendship of the Faiths, 9 

Splendors about whom all life sings, 
Horrors that may not endure, 
Growth, beginning, movement, and change, 
Death, and sleep, and fleetnesses that range, 
Circles on circles of strange divinities, 
Worship than these that yet wilder is ; 
But over them and above 
Hovers the hope of Love, 
And the crescent white Light within 
Promises itself and release from the lessening base- 
ness and sin. 



V. 



O mother of nations, vast and visionary, 

Asia, whose teeming loins sent both to South and 

North 
Your myriad wanderers forth. 
Toward the great hope that glows and may not 

vary 
Your strong and elemental gaze was sent. 
Beside the gentler-moving waves of the great sea 
Your worshipping sons were fixed and bent 
Before the Law's serene inviolable majesty, 
And Fatherhood shone forth ennobling and sub- 
lime. 
Monarch amid the weaknesses of Time ; 
The grandeur of the large ancestral past, 
The deathless force of all the things that were, 
Over your children their divineness cast 
And patient rest in power that cannot err. 



lo The Friendship of the Faiths, 

O dreaming mother, yet on high afar 
And past the dimmest and remotest star, 
Your eyes beheld the vision of the lonely calm. 
That was to restlessness a lure, to agony a balm ; 
You found the way of prayer and abstinence and 

thought 
By which the freedom from the body could be 

wrought, 
The mid of contemplation where arise 
The peace and silence of the painless skies ; 
Yet others of your sons sought more than peace ; 
Nobility, a flame at war with night, 
Sent them on conquest's paths, bringing release 
To multitudes not wakened to the sight 
Of central radiance guiding all aright ; 
And others roamed the crested, haunted seas, 
Hoping somewhere to fathom life's dark mysteries ; 
And Egypt, who was yours, sat questioning 
What the cold voiceless grave might bring ; 
And others saw within the Spirit's lustrous deeps 
The pure Transcendent One, who ever keeps 
In arms of sleepless providence 
The wavering soul's pre-eminence ; 
And on your vision glowed the miracle, 
That holds the universe in omnipresent spell. 
The region of the Eternal where all hearts are one 
In the good Father, and each heart a son, 
Where life's each deed is infinite, complete, 
And all are glad at gracious Freedom's feet ; 
And later came the fierce triumphal march 
Under heaven's variant arch 



The Friendship of the Faiths* 1 1 

Of those who knew that Unity 
Was lord and secret of just prophecy ; 
O mysterious mother of us all, 
In the great day that is to come, 
In the great fate that must befall, 
Your voice shall gird with gold the mighty Music's 
sum. 



VI. 



Unto the westering star, 

Beside the midland sea, 

The pageant speeds and rolls. 

The search which shatters each bond and bar, 

The grasp of the joy which must forever be, 

The unanimity which is the soul's. 

The dream of golden manhood burst and rose, 

Young Greece, victorious 'twixt the heavens and 

earth. 
The outer pliant to the thought that glows. 
Love, Light, and Equipoise in subtle birth ; 
The rhythmic pulses of the spirit keep 
Equable flow with forest, hill, and dewy lawn, 
The sun for an ecstatic moment in a perfect dawn 
Resting unanxious for the wearying steep, — 
For a brief interval, and the great toil 
Builds another curve and coil 
Of the self-recurrent rise 
Unto the topmost skies. 

Rome's tramp of armed and relentless strength 
Wakens the echoes from the North to South, 



12 The Friendship of the Faiths, 

And conquest builds its passages at length 
From snows unmelting unto ceaseless drouth. 
The might of Will Supreme 
Burns in the haughty eagle's gleam ; 
Obedience firm unto the sterner law- 
Circles the regions with its luminous awe. 
The shepherd star that beamed upon the east 
Soared to a flooding sunshine and increased ; 
The impassioned dweller of the forest felt 
That radiance into his being melt ; 
Forth from his immemorial woods Germanic 
The storm of warriors sweeps titanic ; 
Over the anguished tyrant-ridden world 
The torrent was sent forth and hurled ; 
The tumult soothed itself and life 
Sprang deepened from the storm and strife ; 
The inner glories woke and shone 
Contrasted with the outer's pain and moan ; 
Heaven's paramount spheres of sovereignty spirit- 
ual 
Held the roused heart in noblest thrall. 
Lo ! by the wondrous midland sea 
Life wove for itself a jewelled imagery, 
A garb of gemmed observance and a power 
That has unending labor for its dower, 
A robe miraculous of song and flame and tale 
Whose wearing calms all waywardness, 
Having strange might to bless 
And making wanton passions bend and quail ; 
But where the icier stars look forth 
Upon the iron north, 



The Friends I lip of the Faiths. 13 

The revelation in its whiteness pure 

Needs only its own strength to draw and to allure ; 

The secret comes in mildest splendor 

Unto its worshipper and attender, 

The veilless Truth and all-embracing Hope 

At the unclouded summit of the nation-travelled 

slope ; 
Yet further westward turns the expectant gaze 
Across the ocean's ceaseless roar 
Whence swift mysterious lightenings pour 
Promises of a newer morning's blaze. 



VII. 



Room for the light and growth, 

Room for the farthest-reaching strong desire, 

Occasion's golden portals open unto all ! 

The speeding hours are nothing loth, 

And every truth's soul-circling and soul-healing 

gyre 
Finds the glad skies that must befall. 
Over the sea's forbidding reach and long denial 
The old deliverance fleets and toils as in the past, 
And once again a noble trial 
Promises guerdon at the last. 
The web which the weary years have fashioned 

well. 
The garment made by the toilers dead, 
Mankind shall wear in splendor perfected 
And peace amid them shall securely dwell. 
Truth's ever-variant revelations 



14 The Friendship of the Faiths, 

Like light convergent to a single point 

Shall bring together the long-severed nations 

And the one sacred oil shall all anoint. 

Under the buoyant western sun 

The latter labor is begun. 

Land that throws wide the wave-swept shore, 

Land that is Freedom's at your young heart's core^ 

Blooms from the oldest, farthest clime 

Mate with your winds and blend in rhyme. 

Room for the light and growth, 

The seasons no longer are loth ! 

The mingling of lights in the struggling earth 

Sends the white radiance from its luminous girth^ 

Light unto Light above, 

And Love unto Supreme Love, 

The union of souls in conscious Soul, 

Reflex of Spirit and living prayer 

Surging to heaven's uttermost pole 

Through the divided rejoicing air. 

Worship wherein all Time takes part, 

Fulfilment, Attainment, Destiny Fair, 

Divinity's vital, omnipotent art. 

Freedom that holds the world in thrall, 

The stainless wonder, God all in all ! 



VIII. 



Under the summer's latter skies, within the age's 

latter years, 
The friendship of the Faiths is sealed, the triumph 

over doubts and fears ; 



The Friendship of the Fait J is. 15 

From the four quarters of the calmed winds the di- 
verse travellers come, 

Patient to hear the voice of Truth, to hold the 
Quest's ungarnered sum, 

Over the world's unquiet realm to rise and pene- 
trate afar 

Into the mid of spiritual powers that rule the sun 
and every star ; 

For round the whirl and toss of things, above the 
tumult and the din. 

Perfect and pure and prevalent, the true gods dwell 
the spirit within. 

The realm of the ideals great where life is ever 
clear and whole. 

And God himself in perfectness is mixed and joined 
with every soul. 

The suffering and the bitter tears of all the hours 
that gloomed and moaned 

Shine there like jewels fixed and part of ecstasy 
that sits enthroned. 

There every life is young and strong with the whole 
realm's transcendent might 

And darkness is but as a change from light to more 
alluring light. 

The wondrous truths that came and dwelt in visi- 
tations far and sweet 

Like messengers from very God to soothe despair 
and rouse defeat. 

While struggling man climbed up the mount and 
faltered by the anguished way. 

Have ever known that region's calm and golden un- 
diminished day, 



1 6 The Friendship of the Faiths. 

Eternal, incorruptible, Godhead before that regnant 

God 
Arose the master-life of space, and maker of each 

period, 
Serene, divine, the source of everything, the subtly 

permeant air 
That girds and welds the whole with gradual music 

of the ever fair. 
Spirit wherein the reconcilement gives the victory 

to all 
Unto your looming home we pass and freely are 

your bond and thrall ; 
For you are Freedom and who freely yields his 

deepest life to you 
Becomes as one clothed on with Time and mighty 

as the morning new ; 
Unto that goal Truth's pilgrims stern have always 

turned and there have known 
The heart of the white Mystery that on true hearts 

has ever shone ; 
And the religious glow a part of the one Faith su- 
preme, sublime. 
That has nor severing height nor depth, nor differ- 
ence of age or clime ; 
The Search has been a part of it, and felt within 

the small as great 
The passionate beneficence of a transfiguring golden 

fate 
That was in everything, in cloud and sky, in death 

and darkest sin, 
The ceaseless potent miracle that wrought the 

nobler life within. 



The Friendship of the Faiths » 17 

This is the storied Citadel to which the Paths have 

wound and led, 
This is the glorious finished toil for which the Deed 

has striven and bled. 
Here in these latter sounding years the voice is 

heard poured from the sky, 
" All men are children of great God and not a child 

of his shall die ! " 
Here in the Parliament of Faiths is seen the trust 

that knows all men 
Born of that loftiest realm, and strong as Truth's 

unquestioned denizen. 
For in the soul all paths are one, and every pathway 

must be trod 
To find that region's myriad dells, whose rounding 

wholeness is high God ; 
And every light that shone soe'er is part of that 

o'ermastering Light 
Which every man must make his own, as regent of 

his certain sight. 
Here is the conclave catholic, which speaks the 

reconciling truth. 
Seeking the ageless permanent life that smiles 

above in blissful youth. 
The conclave that is one with aims that were when 

worlds and stars were nought 
Save as they slept and trembled fair within the 

sempiternal thought. 
The just belief, the worship meet, all revelation's 

fount and source, 
The light-veiled chaste nobility whence History 

drew its curving course. 



1 8 The Friendship of the Faiths, 

Life grows divine, hope's goal is won, when the 

Eternal opens wide 
His music-hinged gates and through and through 

the world is Heaven's own bride, 
When the great Faiths clasp hand and say they are 

the clear Transcendent One's 
Who will not change whatever ways are those of 

the time-travelling suns. 
Lo ! search has been his life within the pulsing 

secret life of man 
And hope his blood of reddest hue that through 

the anguished heart-beats ran, 
And in the circle of his hands benign shall rise the 

Temple fair 
Wherein mankind from every star shall speak his 

name and breathe his air. 



LAST MOVEMENT OF THE SYMPHONY. 
(allegro maestoso.) 

" I "HE hushed and all-expectant air is cloven 

-*■ By the low throbbing violins' golden murmur, 
And one by one the mellow tones are woven 
Into a song that firmer grows and firmer. 

The dullard cares that all our day infested 
Have fled like mists before the music's sun, 

And fallen hope re-arises and invested 
With glow of life that is as triumph won. 

What is the land to which the dream invites us ? 
What the awakening thrilling through and 
through us ? 
Has Heaven a strength than this that more delights 
us ? 
A fervor that can more than this renew us ? 

Instrument after instrument sweeps exultant 
Into the harmony growing ever grander, 

And the large joy that is the chief resultant 

Becomes life's sovereign and divine commander. 

19 



20 Last Movement of the Symphony, 

The rush and tumult of unfettered passion 

Faded away in solemn adjuration, 
And bliss was born in bright miraculous fashion 

Out of the pain and scornful incantation. 

The melodies half-uttered, stammering, broken, 
Complete at last and wondrously united, 

Obey the central song's soft luminous token. 
And are as those whom Heaven itself has 
plighted. 

The whole world's victory dwells in that heard 
splendor. 
The end attained for which the Movement 
yearns, 
And we, made part of it and tranced attender. 
Know with what purpose all great feeling burns. 

Which is the true and which the permanent real, 
The daily pageant fleeting past our eyes, 

Or this ascent and mixture with the ideal, 
Whereinto he best lives who deepest dies ? 

Yea, song is more than we who love and hear it, 
And life is greater than the hours that fly. 

And music-winged we ever speed more near it, 
The dream that larger is than earth or sky. 



GOETHE. 



21 



GOETHE. 

I. 

TNTIMATE strength of the mist-veiled begin- 

-■■ ning, 

Will-winged purpose whose measureless flight 

Past life's pain and the failure of sinning 

Seeks the high goal beyond hearing or sight, 

Into your passion of hope and attainment, 

Into your speed and glory of light, 

I would be borne and whither the gain went 

Follow and see the City arise 

Answering the glow of Eternity's skies. 

Far off I hear the dim-toned murmur. 

Song that began before Time was. 

Growing each breath more gracious and firmer, 

Clear with the bliss, its parent and cause, 

Song that has ever been deed and achievement. 

Heart of the labors that built up for man 

Wondrous release from the bond and bereavement 

That mocked the gropings of tribe and of clan. 

From the good gods poured forth and descended. 

Soul of the victory certain to be. 

Heaven and earth mysteriously blended 



24 Goethe, 

In one wide-wandering harmony. 
Ever the voice of the Noble has sounded 
Through the large reaches of vanishing Time, 
Ever the Hope been promised and grounded 
In the sun-mastered and permanent clime. 
Through the vague glooms of the Fate that allured 

him, 
Through the chill night of defeat and despair, 
Song has arisen on man and assured him 
Somewhere beyond was the light-swathed air. 
Around him has always a mystical region been 

woven, 
Fashioned of tones from the poet-struck lyre. 
Always the winds have been severed and cloven 
By the shaped music of the deathless desire. 
World of the singers, immortal, eternal, 
World of the spirit that flashes the clearer, 
Changeless in change, divinely completed and 

vernal. 
Truer than of old and passionately nearer. 
We would partake of your marvellous blisses. 
World that is closer and dearer than this is. 
Forth from our strange and growing forgetfulness, 
Forth from the noises that laugh and deride you, 
Forth from the bitter regretfulness 
Wherein we are bound because of the many who 

denied you. 
We fleet and again the transfiguring Ideal 
Lifts its white walls around and before us. 
Taking to itself the splendor-crowned real, 
Bringing us peace and new calm to restore us. 



Goethe. 25 

II. 

What is the secret that has ever been ringing, 
Through the wide air since the world was young ? 
Hearken ! Afar the glad thrilling singing 
From the dim depths of the mystery sprung ! 
Yea, the mighty and manifold witnesses 
Speak the same message in many a tongue. 
Bend the same truth with soft yielding fitnesses 
Unto the heart with questionings wrung ; 
And though to-day the duller-brained scoffer 
Scorns the clear music as aimless and cold, 
Yet be assured from the infinite coffer 
Grandeurs are taken just as of old. 
Poesy now as in days long ended 
Points to the realm that is freed from Time's chains, 
One with deep thought that has purely tran- 
scended 
Earth and her ever mutable gains. 
Into that region I venture to enter. 
Commune there with those who have been 
Guide to all men and heaven-sent mentor 
On the way upward we are striving to win. 
Faint though the words I utter before men, 
Yet am I certain they fell from the lips 
Strongest of those who have lived to restore men 
Out of the night we walk and eclipse. 
Him of old Greece, and the dark-browed Italian, 
England's great master, all-grasping and bold. 
Bringing each in his swift-sailing galleon 
Untold treasures of spiritual gold. 



26 Goethe, 

Take therefrom and their hands that proffer 
Jewelled leaves for his serene brow, 
Latest of angels, whose subtle dreams offer 
Latest of lights on the paths we tread now. 



III. 



Deep as the encircling flood of the self-returning 
ocean, 
Holding the earth in embrace, perfumed and 
large and strong. 
Calm in many-colored resplendence and fierce in 
commotion, 
Life-giving ever and source passioned of pulses 
that long 
Still to behold arise the nobler and loftier frui- 
tions. 
Where the ideals may dwell secure from sorrow 
and wrong, 
Sea up-bearing the ships full-freighted of hopes 
and their missions. 
Out of the mist-clad eld sweeps the impetuous 
song, 
Song of the hero holding the half-formed world in 
his eager 
Purposeful grasp that moulds fair to the race's 
behoof, 
Bastioned towers of the soul against the strengths 
that beleaguer. 
Rising dim Nature above, holding grim Night 
aloof. 



Goethe, 27 

Freest and joyfullest of voices, filled with the 
mirth of the morning, 
Part of the life that is, life that has overcome 
death, 
Thorough this land of ours and dreams that leap 
past the scorning 
Pour the glow of your life-kindling service and 
breath. 
Once more on the high quest we move not east- 
ward but westward, 
Western realm of the east, home of the gods and 
sun, 
Winning the heavenly beauty and passing evermore 
blestward, 
Toiling through day and through night till the 
vast work be done. 
Herald you of the march of the nations and des- 
tiny-forecaster. 
Pointing the way unto men, knowing the far- 
gleaming goal. 
Wisdom-gatherer and giant of laughter and clear- 
eyed master. 
Bringing as gift to the free life that is lovely and 
whole. 
Far across the weary centuries' tumult and anguish 
Back we turn unto you, light's deep essence and 
heart. 
Rousing our hearts from the fears wherewith we 
are burthened and languish. 
Bathing ourselves in you, fountain of beauty and 
art, 



28 Goethe. 

Knowing your hand will help us to weave the 
crown and the laurel 
Made for your brother and peer, one of the lofty 
line, 
Poets and sceptred kings whose words are the force 
and the moral 
Wherewith the earth is glad, wherewith her pure 
eyes shine. 

IV. 

And lo ! the lord of Spirit's wondrous regions, 

The deeper glories and the inner splendor. 
The ecstacies that rise in golden legions 

Before the suffering-cleansed and strong-souled 
wender 
Through the new lands ; he voices these divinely. 
And the result that is the act's attender 

He urges ever on the hearts who bend supinely 

In passion's onslaught, and the tense confession 
That brings the sun looking forth more benignly 

After the tempest's horror and obsession. 
The steep descent shows love behind its 
glamour. 
And freedom knows from a superb repression 

How darkness grows self-conqueror and tamer ; 
Lo ! upward leads the star-watched mountain 
singing 
Where blame becomes its own relief and blamer, 



Goethe, 29 

And strenuous wisdom speeds and smiles in 
bringing 
Message from life's last peak and light-veiled in- 
most ; 

Then gazing on those soft strong eyes and 
clinging, 

Flight to the Rose where they are chief and win 

most 
Who have been least amid earth's weary pastime ! 
Seer of the Hope whose strengthening rule has 

been most 

Longed for throughout all History's spiring vast 
time, 
When the Achievement shines in its best glory 
That was at first and shall be in the last time, 

What you beheld from your high promontory, 

The Empire and the Church in joy united. 
We all shall know as purport of the story, 

And on the earth delighting and delighted 

The twain shall be as those whom love has plighted. 

V. 

Forth from the Spirit and again to earthward. 
Leaps the great art that took for its domain 

All forms of action and sped ever mirthward 
From its own visions of fierce woe and pain. 

Bold kings and lords and ladies fair and golden, 



30 Goethe. 

Creatures of air and those whose homes are 
flowers, 
The passions mad of ages past and olden, 

The clear delights of woven forest bowers. 
Are born anew into the song's high clangor. 

And every deed is more because the soul 
That pours itself into its joy or anger 

Seems gifted with the largeness of the whole. 
So one man is the sphere's compeer and equal, 
Life's total self complete and its own sequel. 

No builder he of fancies ; deep and serious, 

Amid the pomp and very revelry, 
The sovereignty of justice grand, imperious, 

Shows what life's movement must forever be. 
The victory of Right amid the direful 

Conflict of rights, rooted, it seemed, as rock 
Fronting the sea's upheave condign and ireful. 

The storm's dense-clouded and impetuous shock, 
Held his gaze fixed and firm ; and on his vision 

The sunset peace that comes to spirit glad 
With conquest of itself and just decision 

How dear the fate its blest remorse has had ; 
All earth's contents and furies made resplendent 
Since seen Eternity's friend and close attendant. 

VI. 

Past are the ages 
Rejoicing in rages 
Of storm and battle 



Goethe, 3 1 

And thunder-rattle 

Of conflict fierce and pale ; 

Now peace elater, 

Despair-dissipater, 

Grander and greater, 

Calms passion and wail. 

Hear the world calling 

In accents enthralling 

On the miracle-worker, 

Exorcist and King 

Of the darkness-lurker, 

The weirdly menacing 

Destroyer and slayer 

Of hopes that are fairest 

And dreams that are rarest. 

Master and player 

On harp that rings clearly 

With message that trances 

The listener sheerly 

In wide-reaching glances 

And sun-woven visions 

Driving derisions 

Like clouds from its pathway, 

He comes and the thunder, 

Over and under, 

Of morning and glory 

Rolls down Night's wrath-way. 

And renewed is the story 

Of joy and success 

And the strength that must bless. 

The new world arises. 



32 Goethe, 

The peace-world and labor, 

The love of the neighbor, 

The end of the night time, 

The death of disguises. 

Heard are the voices 

Whose spirit rejoices, 

Spirit of the bright time, 

And the white morrow 

Makes flee the sorrow 

Of scorn and passion 

In miraculous fashion. 

Of falchion and armor, 

Of craft, the old harmer. 

He comes, the dispeller 

And fate-compeller. 

Vanish glooms that darken. 

Vanish helmet and morion, 

Hearken, oh, hearken, 

We see him and hear him, 

We watch and we near him, 

The true Euphorion — Euphorion ! 



VII. 



He was the true man 

Freedom-awakened, 

He was the new man 

With thirst unslakened 

For the great dreams from the bright skies pouring. 

Skies of the Future 

Whose higher concavities 



Goethe, 33 

Rose over the past and its many depravities 

With loftier divinities for nobler adoring, 

And joining with suture, 

Marvellous and golden. 

Worships to be and those that were olden. 

And first the time-hallowed barriers, 

Soul-wounding and harriers, 

He spurned from before his ways 

And the woes which they bore his days. 

No limits should be for him 

Save those which he made, 

No alien eyes see for him 

The truths in their braid 

Of light-woven mystery 

Under flaming all life and the movement of history. 

Heaven-scaling his ardor and fire 

And quenchless the force and the flight of desire^ 

Till on that grim night shone forth the sun 

And his earliest labor was done. 

For he saw that the unending rigor 

Of Freedom lay in obedience and vigor. 

Then his heart leaped forth to the spirit that stole 

Through natural forms, through night and through 

day. 
Forever attaining its purpose and goal. 
And then speeding onward and still away. 
The web of the veil 
Wherein stars are robed 
He tore and sundered. 

And the silver far gleaming garment and mail 
Within which planets are globed 



34 Goethe. 

Knew its secret discovered and wondered. 

The rocks and the flowers, 

The teeming miracle of life, 

The splendors arisen from tumult and strife. 

The ceaseless toil of the procreant hours, 

His swift thought tracked and he knew the rhyme 

Which is the controlling purport of time. 



VIII. 



The fierce and impassionate eyes of swift youth 
forever are blinded 
By search for love and its beauty, eager and full 
of haste. 
The world of the morning gleams gold to the rest- 
less and myriad minded. 
The softly uprolling mists hide hollow afar and 
waste. 
Those eyes are filled with strange fire and give 
everything for dower 
A glory and glow that seem of more worth than 
all else beside, 
The phantasm of life arises whose lingering magical 
power 
Fleets slow as a dream which the heart would 
cling to and not be denied. 
Forth from these shows of the senses and out of 
these moods that hold us. 
Wandering within a maze of flower and river and 
hill, 
Strange potent enchantments that lure and wizard 
joys that enfold us, 



Goethe. 3 5 

Making our souls but a plaything and fettering 
our purposeless will, 
Hard are the sinuous pathways and weary-footed 
to follow, 
Cold grows the ether around us, and lonesomer 
far the height. 
Where our own voices grow alien, our words sound 
distant and hollow. 
And the high sun showers forth a warmthless 
dislumined light. 
Yet over the difficult steeps and through the strait 
mountain passes 
Winds the long search for the plain where the 
true fatherland shines, 
Sweeter then ever before and deep with the wind- 
swept grasses. 
Lovely and subtle and clear, fresh with the per- 
fume of pines. 
And lo ! the truth is around us, our eyes are freed 
from illusion, 
All we have lost is there, friend and lover and 
hope. 
Weak and pulseless and faint seems the vehement 
storm-winged confusion 
Against which once on a time we had found it so 
hard to cope. 
Now every toil is sweet, now we are ruler and 
master. 
Now we are ready to bow in the fine reverences 
three, 
And the swift flight of time, hurtling on fast and 
yet faster, 



36 Goethe, 

Gives up its innermost soul pure of its darkness 
and free. 
You have we followed, O Poet, and wondrous 
weaver of stories. 
You who have fathomed and known every wild 
change of the way. 
All its shadows and glooms, its reaches and out- 
looks and glories. 
And after the leaden-houred night the burst of 
the golden day. 



IX. 



Who shall say the past has perished, who shall say 

that Greece is dead ? 
Nay, as living as the present, ancient thought with 

ours is wed. 
Backward fleets the sleepless longing, sees the 

subtly moulded beauty, 
Gods of everlasting laughter, joyance lord of life 

and duty, 
From the effort and the struggle, from the labor 

yet unfinished. 
Backward to the task completed, art that lives yet 

undiminished. 
As we now are groping, searching, hoping for the 

exaltation, 
He too sought from toils barbaric bright and happy 

liberation. 
Can we then slip off the garment woven by the 

strong time-spirit. 



Goethe, 37 

Know again the young Apollo, seek his splendor 

and dwell near it ? 
All this Gothic grotesque clamor leave for serene 

morning song 
Dropping from the very heavens, silver clear and 

wondrous strong ? 
He rejoiced in the achievement, brought to life the 

buried treasure. 
Felt again the ancient sorrow, knew again the 

ancient pleasure, 
Heard the priestess speak in Tauris words of cheer, 

divine consolement. 
And the furies fled defeated subject to love's high 

controlment. 
Deeper sought in strangest caverns secrets whose 

command embraces 
History's every onward movement, worlds that 

dwell in variant spaces. 
Found the realm of the Idea, fountain of the lives 

divisive. 
Showering fates that rouse the peoples, bringing 

ills to scorn derisive. 
And by many a winding pathway sought the clue 

and surely found it 
Which led back restored Helen, beauty and the 

glow around it. 
Art and splendor re-created, nobleness reclothed in 

form. 
Half more than the overwholeness, moderation 

after storm, 
Classic, crystalline and finished, poems statue-like 

and pure, 



38 Goethe, 

Thoughts as round as singing planets fixed in words 
that must endure, 

Being fashioned in such manner that their sub- 
stance is eternal, 

All their elements free from weakness, perfect- 
colored, perfumed, vernal. 

Yet not here the climbing spirit can find peace nor 
long make pauses, 

Leaping over loveliest limits, onward pressed by 
deepest causes. 

Not with truths that shine resplendent in a realm 
of sharp exclusion, 

But the energy that can master shifting hosts of 
dire confusion. 

Hold them bound by strong devices, make them 
take the bit and harness. 

Drive through charm of gardened nearness, sweep 
through mystery of farness. 

Form as thought self-balanced, moulded, ocean- 
lustrous and sonorous, 

Goth and Greek at last united, gift the greatest 
Time yet bore us. 



X. 



Whither may the flight of the spirit be taken ? 
Lo ! it arises higher and higher, 
Spurning the ground ; its melodies waken 
Girt by the morning's enveloping fire. 
What is beyond there 
In the clear blueness ? 



Goethe, 39 

Tree of life lifting a wind-swayed frond there, 

Growth into ever more heavenly newness ? 

Or is the void in that luring dim distance, 

And sheer defeat the end of existence, 

Closing around us 

Limitless limits that bound us, 

The unvoiced realm of the Mystic Unknowable 

Where Thought cannot be and no seed is sowable ? 

Nay, do you hear him mocking behind you ? 

Now he comes forth with leer and with sneer ; 

This is the fate that the years have designed you, 

Darkness incarnate is palpably near. 

Now for the grapple 

With bated breath ! 

Who wins the apple 

Of life and of death ? 

This is the field where the battle is keenest. 

This is the day that must surely be won, 

Victory here wears laurel the greenest, 

Now sh-all the deed for the whole world be done. 

We join them in the weary search 

And leave behind the home and church. 

The impetuous impulse and the daring 

We two can feel burning and bearing 

Our very souls into that longing 

Struggling past pain and all its wronging. 

Ah, how the agony tears and shatters. 

Ah, how the will o' the wisp fleets and flatters ! 

Yet he who ever strives must find exemption, 

And sorrow work its own redemption. 

Hark ! the voice of Margaret calling 



40 Goethe, 

Down from the heights of pardon falling ! 

Over the mountain fell and past re-awakened 

Greece 
The journey speeds to find release ; 
And there beside the deep-toned sea, 
Forth from the wave emerges all that is to be, 
Love, being conqueror, brings the deed, the vision, 

ecstasies. 
And servant held forever downward sinks dark 

Mephistopheles. 



XI. 



He only wins his freedom truly, 

Who daily wins it fresh and fair. 

He only ever rises newly 

Into the regions of the purer air 

Who falters not for blame nor praise, 

But lives in strenuous and victorious days. 

Past the times that bore and held him 

Looked the gray poet with his quenchless gaze, 

Some dear vision hovered and compelled him 

Toward the Future's sunnier ways. 

Over the ocean's welter westward 

Sped his hope and strengthening thought. 

Where each tenth wave rolled higher to crestward 

Even as Fate rose nobler wrought. 

You, O prairied land Hesperian, 

Better than older continents. 

Will know to gather fire 

From the empyrean's strong desire, 



Goethe. 4I 

And souled with the passion once Iberian, 

Show forth the life to which all Time consents. 

From the verge and lofty highland 

Where the aged poet stood, 

Past fair France and England's white-cliffed island, 

In his last prophetic mood, 

Hitherwards he turned and brightened 

With the young land Freedom-lightened, 

Hope's superbest dedication 

Of each part unto the Whole's high consecration. 

Here shall be song for him. 

Here shall prolong for him 

All his high music the musical deed, 

Mystery banishing 

With dark clouds vanishing. 

Onwards to lead ; 

Love pure, etherial. 

Master and King, 

Power crowned, imperial, 

Victory must bring. 

Glad to beseech of us 

Gentleness, strength. 

Showing to each of us 

Heaven at length ! 



REVELATION. 

' I "HE booming bee, the wild, bold rover, 

^ Flutters from roses white to red. 
Now pauses, and then floats quite over 

The breeze-bent flower bed ; 
The silence doubles his deep voice, 
And both are but one tune — rejoice / 

The ripples fleet across the river, 

Imprisoning the fiery gold 
Which the high sun, unstinting giver, 

Into their cells has rolled ; 
And all their lucence speaks and tells 
Of miracles and pleasure spells. 

I gaze into the sky's deep mystery. 
That circle of unfathomed blue, 

That orb wherein all Time's vague history 
Finds secret record due, 

And lo ! throughout its luminous rings 

All rapture's sunshine thrills and sings ! 



42 



DANTE. 



43 



DANTE. 

T^riTHIN these latter years from all the sky 

Thunder the trumpets of increasing storm ; 
Dark shadows on the earth and waters lie, 

And flickering tongues, whose messages deform 
The languid, lingering hope, 
Across the welkin's slope 
Flash in sharp lightnings of a mocking glee 
At man's defeat and thought's deep misery. 

Why linger in the regions dolorous 

Where path is none, and we who trod before 
Grew gaunt with dreams, that beckoned us 

To follow where the cloudy height was more 
Engirt in heavier night, 
And all the uncertain light 
Shone but our faltering footsteps to deceive 
And our worn hearts of their last hope bereave. 

For in that valley wondrous sirens sung, 

And in the heavens we saw the city's spires 
Whereto our rising hopes leaped forth and clung, 
And on the chaos of our young desires 
A harmonizing strain 
Fell, and in its dear chain 
45 



46 Dante. 

Bound us transformed, until we seemed to reach 
A being's ecstasy past thought or speech. 

But these were dreams (men said), and one by one 

They faded, and the sun-deserted air 
Shuddered above the landscape, and to shun 
Its barren desolation and despair 
Became an impulse strong 
To bear us swift along 
The stream whereon the many move and float 
And strive to still their soul's supremest note. 

Sometimes like ghosts the vanished visions came 

And floated past our half-forgetting eyes, 
Robed in the light, sad-changed, but still the same 
As when they gave to morn a new surprise 
Of fire beyond its fire. 
And the suppressed desire 
Moved in its tomb for a brief moment's space. 
And half disclosed once more its youthful face. 

Nay, we have not escaped the general gloom, 

For through the realm wherein our hours are 
past 
Mutter the thunders of the bolts of doom. 
And all our joy into the abyss is cast 
Whereto our loftiest thought 
Or vision noblest wrought 
Is swept by winds that howl and madly blow 
Around each spot where our slow steps must go. 



Dante. 47 

Harken the voices which are our despair, 

Their tones are myriad, but their message one ; 
** Ye cannot know ; your hopes are vague as air ; 
With this life's briefest span, the whole is done ; 
The self, than prison-walls 
Mightier, the soul enthralls ; 
The Mystery engirds you and the Unknown 
Enfolds you round, silent as senseless stone. 

^' The gods are frailest visions of the night 

Wherein the peoples wandered ere arose 
The sun beneath whose fierce transfiguring light 
Our march of world-dominion onward goes ; 
The sun whose sense is this. 
That nothing truly is. 
That having eyes to see we cannot see, 
And having being yet we cannot be. 

" The words miraculous of the sages dead. 

The golden splendors that enchained their 
souls. 
The dreams wherein the earth and heaven were 
wed, 
The flight of joy to being's utmost pole, 
All these are vain and weak 
And realms where men who seek 
Find but themselves like mighty shadows cast 
Upon a mountain pathway overpast. 

*' The earth is all, the ceaseless whirl and toss 
Of soulless atoms in their changing play ; 



48 Dante. 

Yet these we know not, for we cannot cross 

The barriers which themselves did round us 
lay ; 

Our life is only pain, 
Whose utmost hope and strain 
Avail no more than bid us yield its breath 
Unto the voiceless void of rest and death." 

While thus we walked, clad in our dark dismay. 

Comfort (we heard) waited us from afar. 
Messages from the golden break of day. 
And accents of a more benignant star. 
Voices with power to bring 
Light as an offering. 
And showing water-springs and secret wells 
Where health resides and consolation dwells. 

We listened to the wonder-freighted words. 

And on our souls a latter morning broke. 
All our rapt thoughts began to sing as birds 

That feel the spring within their limbs awoke. 
And the tumultuous brood 
Who had given us night for food 
Sullenly sought their lairs within the abyss 
And fouled no more our life's increasing bliss. 

Our steps were led to the long-famed domain 

Where ruled the austere and mighty Floren- 
tine, 

Whose mazes we had trod and long been fain 
To know the purport of its bliss and sin, 



Daiite. 49 

The secret deep to read 

In our most direful need 
Of splendor there on loftiest peaks that shone 
And songs that floated pure of pain and moan. 

As by a magic touch the realm lay clear, 

The dark descent we saw upheld by love, 
And one by one our every doubt and fear 
Melted in radiance falling from above ; 
The gloomy vale of Dis 
We trod, and after this 
The strange and melancholy way that leads 
To the Mount of Healing's green and singing 
meads. 

We climbed that Mount where pain is held and 
sought 
As expiation of the luckless deed, 
We heard the hymns of deep contrition wrought^ 
We saw the stars that glowed for each one's 
need. 

We felt the mountain thrill 
And knew some happier will 
Had found release from its long-harbored grief 
And in the Heavens its fit and sure relief. 

Learning we followed as our large-eyed guide, 
Empire and Might derived of natural things, 

The Master of the Ancients who denied 
Nought to our askings in the limitings 
That circled him as law, 

4 



50 Dante. 

And after him we saw 
Descend for us from Heaven's most central rose 
Those eyes wherein all Godhead shines and glows. 

O wondrous maiden, Thought divine and high, 

Miracle and Will of God for our behoof, 
O voice serene within whose potence lie 

Death and dismay for all keeps us aloof 
From Heaven's divinest shrine, 
Our souls are wholly thine ; 
Lo ! where thou leadst we follow thee and gain 
The ultimate vision and the farthest plain. 

Past the high Heavens, and in the Blessed Rose, 
Before the Throne and Glory of pure Light, 
Loving as He who loves and as who knows 
The All in one supreme of love and sight, 
We worship and adore, 
We shall not wander more. 
But, our great journeyings done and overtrod, 
Mix and participate in very God. 



PROTAGORAS. 

'PEAR, fear ? After we know the very worst, 
•*" What lower deep can yawn or gloom for us ? 
Grown dull because we have so long been nurst 

In dreams both merciless and marvellous, 
We dare not look upon the simple truth, 

But vex ourselves about realms sad or glad, 
And wonder whether God is merely ruth. 

Or if perchance He is capricious-mad. 
Deign not to fear, much less descend to hope, 

Within you lies the measure of the all, 
Sound but the deeps of your own soul and scope, 

And nothing further can your life befall. 
So much beyond the whole of bliss and pain 
Is that which makes the strength of these and 
strain. 



51 



PLATO. 



53 



PLATO. 



nPHE imperious centuries pass and bear 

Unto the vast abyss 
The works diverse we deemed most fair, 
The builded realms of state and law 
That held our utmost awe, 
Miraculous forms of worships old 
Now grown as their own prophets cold, 
Hopes sunlit with the impassioned bliss 
Of reaching worlds more bright than this, 
Songs that arose on sweep sublime 
And challenged issue with old Time, 
Dreams that for earthly dwelling-place 
Wrought shapes of a supernal grace, 
For strangely in them lurked the flaw 
Which brought their fall and overthrow, 
The years that all their beauty saw 
Knew the slow-dealing blow on blow 
That laid them low. 

II. 

Adown the never-pausing river. 

Out to the shoreless, tumbling seas. 

From under skies wherein the clear light-giver 

55 



$6 Plato, 

Watches the life of men and flocks and trees, 

Forth to the dark realm of the Past 

Float all high things at last. 

The serene stars that blaze 

Across the enraptured gaze 

Had their beginnings and will cease 

From scattering light's increase. 

What is of might to rise and say 

Unto the wide impermanence, 

I know thine origin and whence 

The potence of thy nay ; 

I hold thee as a king his realm, 

And thou art weak to overwhelm 

With thy large waves of ruin dire 

The achievements of my strong desire. 

Have human searchings found the path 

That leads from regions transitory 

To life that for its guerdon hath 

The splendor and the glory, 

Which knows but change from self to self, and 

grows 
By its own death more full of light. 
The light of life that glows 
In God's own sight ? 



III. 



Hard is the steep to climb. 

And many have sought and lost ; 

Many have hearkened to the voice of Time, 

And waited while the vision crost 



Plato. 57 

Their blinded eyeballs, and in weak despair 

Have called upon the unechoing air 

To make response to the stern anguish 

Wherein their self-dazed longings languish. 

Nay, they have cried, we cannot tell 

The secret of the miracle ; 

The painted veil is lifted never, 

The things we see are strong to sever 

Our hearts from feeling answering heat 

From world-heart's great impetuous beat ; 

Fettered we sit within the cave, 

And watch the shadows fleet. 

Nor is there might to save. 

Unless like rays upgathered back into the sun, 

Our Thought, resorbed into the Eternal One, 

Falters from height of differenced life, 

And freed from strife, 

Sinks deep into the silence golden 

Wherein the Unknown God is holden. 

Far knowledge is but of the things we see, 

And frail as wind-swept clouds are we ; 

Children of the unenduring hour, 

And circled by Time's pageant vain, 

We cannot be, and yet attain 

Unto that conscious grasp of all 

Which holds our deepest hopes in thrall. 

And gives our separate souls the immortal power 

Of high conjuncture with the God for dower. 



58 Plato. 



IV. 



Not such thy message, sovereign of the ancient 

world, 
Thou whose swift soul arose 
Above the line of snows, 
And, through the vapors duskly curled 
Above the changeful and the fugitive, 
Saw'st the clear net-work of the thoughts that live, 
Saw'st the Idea pierce and gild 
The realms the passions build ; 
The siren music of the sense 
Lulled not thy sleepless vigor into indolence ; 
Akin unto the far divine, 
Born into time but bound not by its chains, 
Knowing the mystic countersign 
Which opes the Heaven's utmost plains, 
Like thine own hero, the Pamphylian, 
Thou heard'st the singing of the spheres, 
And earthward cam'st for a brief span 
To break our bondage of vague fears. 
To liberate the prisoned soul. 
To show the vision of the whole, 
Which makes and is such visioning. 
The wandering heart once more to bring 
To that great splendor which the seeress knew 
As Love's deep secret, and the power which drew 
Men upward to the service high 
Of the Eternal Goodness past the sky, 
The temple of the Spirit whose effulgence glows 
The Universe's all-illumining Rose. 



Plato, 59 

V. 

Finder of the serene and permanent, 
Beholder and the vision blent 
In the ideas whose enweavings keep 
Regnance on Time's utmost leap, 
The wondrous union where the deed and might 
Converge in one transcendent light, 
Intrepid sailor of all seas of thought, 
Whose fearless eyes swept all the skies, 
Whose ventures mystic cargoes brought 
From the farthest realm that brilliant lies 
Beneath the hand of the unenvying God, 
Yea, thou to whom the near was far. 
Who read'st the marvel of the sod 
As secret of the distant star. 
Torch-bearer in the race of Truth, 
And winner of immortal youth. 
Slayer of time, the serpent curled 
About the ancient melancholy world. 
What lamp of what great sphere of life shone not 
for thee, 

What dwelling of what sacred Gods knew not the 
wing 

Of thy keen spirit's flight, what angel's voice, that 
rang 

With message from the isles in the dim western 

sea. 
Solicited not thine unswerving soul, 
What music's thunder-roll. 
Mixture ecstatic of the spheral throng 



6o Plato, 

That weave life's wonder-song, 
Received not from thy heart 
More than its noblest inmost part ? 



VI. 



Mightiest of realms, the source and end 

Of all that is or is to be, 

World of ideas, which the souls who see 

Know as the goal whereto must wend 

All streams of will or hope or thought, 

Truth most divinely wrought 

Into such self-evoked and complete perfectness 

That without haste or stress 

Thine images flow forth from thine embrace, 

And mirror back thy calm supernal face, 

(For the high strength unenvious 

Can only know his fulness thus) 

Deep heart of love whose pure controls 

Span the far reach of utmost poles, 

Enwoven maze of clear intelligential powers 

Bound into sheaves of unimagined flowers. 

Flowers that are lands for searching souls. 

Where rise the many-gleaming knolls 

From whence far valleys shine and wind 

Responsive to the eyes of perceant mind 

Aflame to know the just and true, 

And find the skies, forever blue, 

Sphere wonderful of thought eterne. 

To which all joy and ardor yearn. 



Plato, 6l 

Unto thy portals first the wizard dreams 

Of the philosopher of hope-winged Greece, 

Plato, our master, King of peace. 

Sailor upon the wide-encircling streams 

That are the secret passage-ways 

Leading to thine all-golden days, 

Plato, the seer and winner of life's high emprise, 

The royal-fronted, with deep solemn eyes, 

The golden dreams of his desire 

Unto thy gates and past the space of fire 

Brought the astonied speed of those 

Who into mixture with thy purity arose. 

Faint lands shown tremblingly in pallid light 

Upon their slowly-comprehending sight ; 

The soft-illumined lakes and lawns 

Glittered beneath pearl-shimmering dawns ; 

Vapors in snowy languid curls 

Hung over hill-protected vales. 

And where the sacred mid unfurls 

The city in the distance pales. 

Lo ! unto those who dare to see. 

And rouse them from the lethargy 

The numbing life of earth builds round the soul, 

There comes the noble vision of the whole ; 

For vales and streams and cities clear 

Are symbols but of truths more near 

The centre, and the dreams of heaven 

Rising through light-clothed gyres from height to 

height 
In glories cancelling the force of sight. 
Until the holy leaven 



62 Plato, 

Of transformation makes the spirit kin 

Unto what is and has forever been, 

Are also but much-trodden ways 

To deeper God-born days. 

The undeviating eye 

Beholds at last the secret of the sky : 

Vast forms of certain permanence, 

The reason of all whither and all whence, 

The origin and the end of things. 

The fountain which forever leaps and sings. 

The realm of the eternal rises clear, 

The interwoven crowned potencies. 

The shine of the ideas, their own light, 

And spring of sovereign, changeless bliss, 

The mystery of the far and near ; 

These are the gods gigantic of the elder times 

That rule all periods and all climes. 

That dispossess the phantoms of old Night, 

And are the inmost of just life and sight. 

They weave their ordered progress in the fire 

Of the supreme and purged desire. 

Their vastness interpenetrates 

Their substance individual, 

And their great glory undulates 

In unison to the regent thrall 

Of one engirding lucence, whose deep glow 

Transfigures all who are and know. 

Being topmost flame of hope and love. 

All nobleness above. 

The centre of the blessed power 

Whence bursts the Universe in flower. 



Plato. 63 

Himself the flower and root and source, 
Where all streams find their mingling course, 
The One Eternal, Good, and Fair, 
Who can and must all acts in his own bosom bear. 



VII. 



Like rays emergent from the sun. 

Like notes dispersing from the singer's lips, 

Like leaves unfolding when the snow is done, 

Like foam back-leaping from wave-cleaving ships. 

Like speech dividing viewless breath. 

Or drops wherewith the rain-cloud drips, 

Lo ! as the One his clear word saith. 

The region of the many blooms at length 

And burns and flames with delegated strength. 

Dark space bursts forth in wheeling stars 

Outridden on their sightless cars ; 

The sea divides before the many colored land. 

The skies above the woods and meadows stand ; 

The winds sweep from the farthest verge 

Of Heaven, and all their murmurs urge 

The might of Time to loftier reach 

Of act and song and speech ; 

The hollows of the rocks are swift to learn 

The eagerness with which the new worlds yearn ; 

The thrill of movement sweeps and sings 

Across the Universe's outstretched strings ; 

The splendor tones upfill the void 

With music only souls may hear. 

Who past the limits of base fear 



64 Plato, 

And by no faintest tremor yet annoyed 

Are as the waters clear 

To lights that change nor veer. 

In ordered numbers move and fleet 

The myriad pulse and beat 

Of wide existence's up-leaping flame ; 

No tongue may rightly name 

The tumult and the stress 

Of crescent loveliness ; 

The gods celestial with a clear geometry 

Build up whatso we know and see ; 

The fashioning of the world proceeds and grows 

With fire and light and dusk and snows ; 

Strange contraries divide and roll 

Back under one control ; 

Frail atoms dance a slender round 

To tune most sweet of scarce-heard sound ; 

Pale blossoms gleam amid light leaves 

And earth her garb around her weaves ; 

The air is glad with rush of wings, 

And everywhere new rapture springs ; 

The unapparent dreams of the high gods 

Find language in the stars and blooms and sods ; 

Proportion holds the world in thrall, 

Blends into one the unnumbered all, 

And 'mid the wanton whirl and toss 

Gathers up rays of light and thought, 

And with a passioned bliss is wrought. 

Where the great currents join and cross, 

The image of the mighty whole. 

The centred and self-mastering soul. 



Plato, 65 

VIII. 

For thee, O soul, the spectacle converges, 

For thee the morning lifts the blaze 

That startles clouds with gold amaze ; 

Around thee life conveys and urges 

All fair sights and wonder-sounds, 

Music falling soft as petals 

From a rose's velvet bounds, 

Soft as mist that dimly settles 

On an island half-descried 

In a bay's expanses wide ; 

An orb of potence thou dost dwell 

In mid and heart of the vast miracle ; 

Forth of thee the silver rays 

Speed of a mysterious fire. 

Binding to thine each desire 

What thou wouldst of the revolving maze ; 

Round thy rapid chariot wheels 

All the pageant flows and glows. 

Thou the monarch and the master, 

Thou the elder and the sire ; 

On thine ear the distant peals 

Fall of bells from summit where 

Shadows flee the sunrise faster. 

Where the gods above the snows 

Shine in calmer, clearer air. 

Thou art of their kin and race. 

Ruler of large time and space ; 

They thy guardians are and friends 

Leading thee to purest ends ; 



66 Plato, 

Circle of their hands rains influence 

Through the vapors dull and dense, 

Which are vain to separate 

Thee and thy benignant fate ; 

The ancient mother of the sky and earth, 

Goddess high, superb, serene, 

Joyously presided at thy birth. 

Wove for thee the temporal screen 

That is for thy severed growth. 

Yet conjoins thee close with both 

Heaven, and earth's severer plane, 

Which to conquer makes thee fain 

Of the loftier changeless gain. 

Wisdom of the universe. 

Strength of stars and might of sun. 

In thee once again are spun 

To a life which can disburse 

Wealth of unifying power 

To the many from its dower. 

Lo ! the mighty spiritual world 

In thy being lies up-furled ; 

Brothers thou beholdst around thee, 

Lives like thine allure, surround thee. 

Thou wouldst build the general doom 

Exorcising night and gloom ; 

Thou unitest joy and thought. 

And the universal State is wrought. 

History's secret and endeavor, 

Birth of Now and the Forever, 

Immortality clothed in Time, 

Spirit found, achieved, sublime. 



Plato. 6^ 

IX. 

Yet further, nobler, draws thee on, 

Whither the highest and the best have gone ; 

The will unanimous of men 

Opens fields of more transpicuous ken ; 

Higher flights the soul uplift, 

God's supreme and final gift ; 

Beauty is the magic lure 

Which leads man forth to what must still perdure. 

He cannot halt upon the path 

Which a beyond reveals and hath ; 

He follows on from peak to peak. 

He burns with bliss to know and seek ; 

The mountain-stairs of high endeavor 

He treads and climbs and scales forever ; 

New glory rises round him still 

And spurs his unabated will ; 

As veil by veil the clouds of dawn 

Vanish with the growing sun. 

Now disclosing vale and lawn. 

Sights far-reaching, never done. 

Thus vision gives to vision place, 

Nobler and more full of glow. 

Till the heart of all above, below, 

Shines the Everlasting Face, 

Shines the all-embracing Good, 

Heart of hearts and love of love. 

Source of soul's unchanging mood. 

Bliss of all below, above. 

As two fair stars perchance unite 



68 Plato. 

Into a deeper and more solemn light, 

Wondrous amity intense, 

All delights of soul condense 

On the summit where the twain 

Join in unrepining gain. 

As from the poet's conquering dream 

Flows in many-glittering stream 

Poem after poem splendid, 

And he walks by them attended, 

Good from good springs forth at length 

In the magnitude of strength, 

The attainment chief, serene, sublime. 

The height to which all souls must climb. 



X. 



Master if my weak words wrong thee, 

Heavenly dweller as thou art. 

Thou wilt ease my burdened heart ; 

Thinkers, lovers, dreamers throng thee, 

Noblest offspring of the ages, 

Wisdom's deep-enamored sages ; 

If my feeble footsteps follow 

AVhere the greater went before me. 

If my song sounds faint and hollow, 

If I sought the land which bore thee. 

Dearest of its many sons, 

And the splendors spreading there 

Through that finer, keener air. 

Overcame my feebler sense, 

Thou wilt smile and bear me hence 



Plato. 69 

From the pain my rapt soul shuns, 

Pain and fear lest thee I have not spoken 

As I would, or rashly way have broken 

Through the mists that clothe our being 

In this lower realm of touch and seeing ; 

Yea, I know that thou wilt smile, 

And forgive if e'er I spake 

Aught that dims thee for a while, 

All was done for thy high sake. 

My gaze turns upward and I see thy face 

Turned thronewards in the mid of heaven, 

Thy voice I hear for an ecstatic space. 

Uttering thy message sweet and high. 

Noble as aught the mystic seven 

Sang in the tales of elder time 

And woven oft in wondrous rhyme ; 

My slowly-gathering sight divines the seers. 

Thy followers and thy peers, 

Who stand besides thee and who vie 

With one another to repeat 

What thou dost tell of high and sweet. 

Thy great forerunners in the race. 

The bearded ones of ages cold. 

Shine in the illumination of thy grace, 

And in thy truth wax bold. 

The youths who heard thine earthly voice 

Look toward thee and rejoice ; 

Dreamers who fell upon the eras sad 

When right was hounded to the dusk 

Of caverns which hoar mountains had, 

And fed upon the weed and husk. 



70 Plato. 

Feel all their sorrow fall from them 
Since they may touch thy garment's hem ; 
And seekers boldest earth has known, 
Now that her hair has whiter grown, 
Still call thee master and great King, 
Still hear thy sonorous sayings ring ; 
The swift years are thy children all, 
And from the distance, hark, we hear 
Yet larger voices on thee call. 
The times to be approach more near. 
And through the pageant as it goes, 
The secret of its life and rich success. 
The flame that through its motion glows. 
The truths benign that all its action bless, 
Lo ! they are thou, and thy deep word, 
Said in the paler past, too long deferred. 
But blossoming into sight and might at last. 
Old miseries done and overpast. 

XI. 

And lo ! thy dreamed Atlantis from thy wars of old, 

Emerges new and shapelier of life ; 

Not all thine Athens, young and bold. 

Could lordlier march to nobler strife ; 

Sister unto thy strong democracy 

She rises from the western sea. 

In those dead wars thou knewst so well 

Before thy Greece her weapons fell ; 

Resurgent now she holds the helm 

That reaches out to the far-shining realm, 



Plato, 

Sighted by thee, and with thy breath for wind, 

Sails forth unto the golden-fronted Ind. 

Whatever storms upon the way 

She sails unto that sun-drenched day ; 

Thou and thy peers from Heaven's own mid 

Guide her and help and bring her far, 

Leave not one secret of that pathway hid, 

Be leader unto her and star, 

Thou and the great who after thy career 

Shone in Truth's firmament. 

Great suns who cannot dim nor veer. 

Filled with the large intent 

Of God's own ministries in sky and earth. 

Protectors of Time's crescent worth. 

Atlantis, latest daughter fair, 

Breathing Freedom's heavenly air, 

Strongest sister of them all. 

Unto no baseness be thou thrall. 

Hear thou the thinker wise and great 

And build the ever-during state. 

Which raises all men to the height 

Of knowing Truth's undimming light. 

Which gives to each the encircling all. 

Crowning bliss of the terrestrial ball. 

Which brings to sight what the philosopher 

Felt in some further period must occur. 

The Ideal hoped for, now begun. 

And into undecaying fabric surely spun, 

Life's victory and the whole of thought 

To equal service of humanity brought ! 



71 



ORPHEUS. 

"XXr IDE-SPREAD as the gray sea the realm of 
^ ^ fate 

Lay in perpetual twilight ; weltering far 
Old Chaos rolled in bursting wave on wave 
And held the seeds of things ; an endless reach, 
A sphere of possibilities, a land 
Wherein eternal Ruin sat enthroned 
And the sweet world of life was not as yet ; 
From God dire Chaos came, for God is king. 
And out of his warm bosom also I. 
A mighty song I am, so loud, so pure, 
That God delights to hear, and wisest men 
Perceive its grandeur of rich melody 
Only in fragments high and pulsings glad ; 
But as I sing the roar of Chaos dies 
And, gradual joyance, subtle grasses sweep 
Across the new-formed plains, and in the East 
The rosy sunrise laughs, and Day is born. 
I sing, and lo ! the cloud-divided sky 
Domes its deep blue above the awakening world, 
And through the land long rivers roll away, 
And in the shadow of the untrodden woods 
The young birds sing frail echoes of my song ; 

72 



Orpheus. 73 

I lift my voice and the large rose shines forth, 
And sheds its soul upon the love-faint air, 
And fruit by fruit the latter trees droop low 
As in their wealth of leafage glow the stars 
That light green skies of autumn ; hark ! I sing ; 
The waters bind themselves in stilly lakes. 
Tree-edged and looking upward to the sun, 
And the brown deer stands on the flower-fringed 

brink 
And drinking sees its shadow slim reach forth 
A soft-eyed greeting ; listen ! again my song ; 
And on the sea-shore rises swift and white 
The youthful city ; in the night the tower 
Sends down the air its lamp-lit messages ; 
Through the wide streets the busy many pour, 
The sturdy men, the women fair, and sweetest 
The little children laugh and play and laugh. 
The white-winged ships come in from the strange 

seas, 
And bearded sailors bring the scented bales ; 
I sing and in the noonday twilights bright 
With fiery flowers and flicker of fair leaves. 
The lovers meet, and to mine ear comes back 
The charmful echo of my beating heart, 
For I am of the spirit of pure life. 
And life is love, the soul of God is love ; 
I give my voice a tremor, deepening, clear. 
The hearts of men are shaken, and they know 
A sound within them, and above, around, 
A music that is very self of me. 
Rising to life in them and spreading far, 



74 Orpheus. 

Ruling all things and dreams and the long sweep 

Of crescent time that they call History. 

I hear myself at length, know what am I, 

What fluctuant murmurs of pure tones 

Build up my fabric, and how golden bright 

Are curves of joy that leap like nobler waves 

Across the sea-mass of my harmony. 

Now once again I flute with eager lips. 

And the steel spears of war snap sheer across, 

And every noise of contest falters slow 

Into a phrase of love and tender tune, 

And through the night of time a firm red glows 

That is the dawn of everlasting day. 

I trumpet forth at last my whole of song, 

The waiting hearts make answer with great joy. 

The mighty nations gladden, the ocean wide 

Circles the world with moving flames of glee. 

One flawless friendship robes the finished work. 

As his pure fire the ever-giving sun. 

Each centred soul co-equal with the whole, 

Untribed, unclassed, unmanacled, and free. 

Unto the realm of Spirit every eye 

Upraised and turned, the inmost heaven of heaven, 

The stainless source of all and end all light, 

Perfect the lovely song in everything, 

Clearly responsive to the song on high ! 



DAVID SWING. 

T^HE engulfing night that clips the world around 

Has reason to rejoice ; 
The voicelessness that girds the realm of sound 
Receives another voice. 

Whither our eager eyes can follow not 

Friend after friend recedes, 
Leaving the earth a cold and wintry spot 

Where every footstep bleeds. 

Him, too, we lose who stood upon his height, 

Fearless, erect, and strong. 
Uttering his message from the soul of right 

Above the waiting throng. 

Shall we not hear again those words of cheer, 
Nor see those eyes that shine, 

Nor hang upon that face majestic, dear. 
And aspect leonine ? 

Whither has fled that over-mastering force. 

That swift illumining wit ? 
Upon what strange and more entrancing course 

Does that fine humor flit ? 

75 



y6 David Swing, 

Deeper Cwe hope) the truth that charms his gaze, 
Fairer the outstretched scene, 

Nobler the stars that round him roll and blaze, 
Purer the meadow's green. 

Patient, serene, he bore the burdened years. 
Felt the great world's deep woe. 

Faced the new questions, crushed the newer fears. 
Saw the sun's rising slow. 

Into the dark that changeless soul has passed, 

Into the void those tones. 
Wherein the all-embracing truth was glassed 

Like light in precious stones. 

Nay, grief mistakes ; whither he goes is light, 

'T is we are dark, indeed ; 
'T is we who dwell within the impending night, 

Who feel the breathless need. 

Lo ! as I strain my upward looking eyes. 
The shadowy death grows fair, 

And, grander than my thought's most rich surmise, 
I see light everywhere. 

The gloom that clips the lessening world around 
Bursts into flame and flower ; 

The voicelessness that girds the realm of sound 
Leaps into music's shower. 



David Swing. 77 

The throng of greater souls who went before 
Shine white as stainless snow, 

And fill wide spaces past the luminous door 
Of sweet Death's pangless woe. 

The silences our sad hearts feared to pierce 

Ring with a wondrous song, 
And joy that holds at bay our anguish fierce 

Makes our rapt souls more strong. 

There with his peers he reaches home at last, 

Knows that his work is good, 
His arduous toils and journeyings overpast, 

Out of the storm-swept wood. 

We also touch the peacefulness benign 

That calms his risen soul ; 
Not night, but glory, splendid and divine, 

Is Death's most certain goal. 

Like stars that fade into the light of day 

Our vanished ones are sped. 
Treading a golden and a flower-lit way 

Where Death alone is dead. 



THE GARDEN WHERE THERE IS NO 
WINTER. 

" Se Dio ti lasci, lettor, prender frutto 
Di tua lezione." 

—Dante. 

TDEHOLD the portal ; open wide it stands, 
■^^ And the long reaches shine and still allure 
To seek their nobler depths serene, secure, 
And watch the waters kiss the yellow sands 
That gentle winds stir with their sweet commands ; 
These stately growths from age to age endure, 
These splendid blooms glow in the sunlight pure, 
These wondrous works of human hearts and 
hands. 

Over the charmed space no storm may rest, 
The gloomy hours avoid the magic bound. 

Homer dwells here, Vergil, and all the blest 
Whose perfumed color lights Time's mighty 
round ; 

Pluck the fruit freely, reader, and partake, 

God wills it — for the enchanted Soul's fair sake. 



78 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

T OVER of country and winner of men, 

Whither wanderest thou forth of our eyes ? 
Shall thy clear soul watch never again 
Sunrise of gold in victorious skies ? 

What is the realm to which thou wouldst go, 
Freed from the bonds that fetter us here, 

Far from the winter's miracle of snow. 
And summer's splendor, yellow and dear ? 

Unto the good thou hast longed for and felt. 
Unto the high thou hast labored to win, 

Lands where thine inmost passion has dwelt. 
Regions where all thy great hope has been, 

Dreams that have risen in glory and gold 
On thy rapt vision deeper than time, 

Reaches whereof thy strong singing has told, 
Circles of Life fulfilled and sublime, 

Gardens where blossom the noblest and best, 

Visible truth and love, lords of all. 
Heaven's white mid and unspeakable rest. 

Music's fine luminous passion and fall, 

79 



8o James Rttssell LowelL 

Thither thou goest and waiting for thee, 
Rise the immortals, smiling and glad, 

Kings of the Spirit, whom Death set free, 
Pure of the griefs which the ages had. 

Toilers with thee in the dim, dead years. 

Singers of songs in answer to thine, 
Helpers and friends in the time of fears 

When the sun of the land disdained to shine. 

Those who watched and waited for morn. 

While the storm rolled and thundered o'erhead, 

Voicing the depth of the whole world's scorn 
Of the sin for which our truest bled, 

Know thee and welcome thee home to thine own, 
Thee, whose voice was a firm clarion-call 

Unto the battle whence victory has blown 
Freedom's awakening to bondman and thrall. 

Greatest of those who toiled for the right. 
Poets and thinkers, winners of fame. 

Greet thine ascent to the summit of Light, 
Hold thee above all praises and blame. 

Heaven has begirt thee, mixed with the tides 
Living, ennobling, flowing through souls, 

Tides of the just that ever abides. 

Life from the heart of the Spirit that rolls. 



James Russell Lowell, 8i 

Light and Life whereof we are fain, 

Thou hast attained them, splendors most pure, 
Thou who hast found the realm without stain. 

Thou who art one with what must endure. 

Conclave divine of the good and the wise, 
Those of the old as the newer time. 

Hold him dear whose new-risen eyes 

Make a new spring in your marvellous clime. 

We who remain look up where you are, 

Rise in our dreams to your living's bright fire, 

Burst in high moments our dull being's bar, 
Grow one with you in our passioned desire. 

And thee, O leader, we hearken and hear, 
Mingle our souls with the motions of thine, 

Follow thy footsteps and watch appear 

The stars in thy heaven of heavens and shine. 

So shall thy spirit, subtle and strong. 

Flood all the land with the truest of thee, 

Build it in semblance of thy high song, 
Make it what thou wouldst have it to be ! 



SLEEP. 

I. 

T NTO your dusk the strong man and the weak 
-^ Pass and lay fear aside ; that deep abyss 
Opens its wondrous doors not far to seek, 

And grief forgets as joy its last long kiss ; 
The mighty thinker on the rising weal 

That is to turn the world from gloom to glow, 
Allows the mists upon his eyes to steal, 

And leaves fleet time unto its unchecked flow ; 
Love sees its stars grow dim and disappear, 

And blackness rule its many-glittering sky, 
Its life grow suddenly chill, disbranched, and sere, 

Its hope dislustered and unpanged its sigh ; 
Man stood upon his height begirt by day, 
Yet yields him where sleep's dull streams drowse 
away. 

II. 

Mayhap the lawless dance of flickering dreams 
Speeds down its twilight reach of spaceless space, 

As through a sombre river yellow gleams 
Of light capricious in untutored race, 

82 



Sleep, 83 

A myriad worlds within a moment's flight, 

A strange commingling of the false and true, 
Day's bubbles foaming on the cup of night, 

Trust's blossoms growing on the stems of rue, 
A pageantry that underprops at last 

The ordered march of things whereon the sun 
Sets his live imprint as the undying past 

Dwells in the now whose course is yet to run ; 
The shadowy all yields up its Soul to each, 
As waters lave and kiss an island's beach. 



III. 



Lo ! doubt is gone — like Sleep's, Death's arms are 
warm, 

His lips breathe next to ours in ecstasy, 
His lampless eyes awake the singing swarm 

Of lovely deeds and blisses yet to be ; 
So tender-great is he that all he is 

He gives, and then he bears himself away. 
Knowing the need of his pale ministries, 

Beneath the feet of the white and hourless day 
On Time's glad farther side ; so he is one 

With Sleep and no dull doom engirds man 
round ; 
For when the might of both is fully done. 

They still uphold the Light-realm's boundless 
bound'. 
Vanishing in it, the dark ruled by the fair, 
And Life and Love growing permanent everywhere. 



WALT WHITMAN. 

'\ 17" HENCE is the voice that I hear, so rich, so 
• * sincere, so free ? 

Hark ! how it thrills the air 
With its mighty resonant tones and its cadences 
novel and full ! 
The singing awakens the land 
With its power and joyance and hope. 
With its call to labor and light ; 
Whence does it come, a wonderful fountain of sil- 
very sound, 
Taking the sun in all its crystalline drops ? 

Upward unto the skies, thou leap'st in very delight, 

Higher and higher thy reach, 
O marvellous fountain of song, upward unto the 
stars ; 
And the fair manifold fires 
Studding the night of Time, 
Scattering the beaten dark. 
Births from the soul of all things, growing more 
numerous and bright. 
Bicker and burn and flash reflected in thee. 
84 



Walt Whit 7 nan. 85 

O singer, whence do the visions come, whence does 
thy soul 
Fill all its longings deep ? 
Whence does the might of the rush of thy wide- 
winged, world-sweeping song 
Gather its splendor of flight ? 
What are the sources clear. 
What are the fathomless springs, 
Where thy high passion lingers and dwells and 
loftily dreams, 
And drains in great draughts the cup of the 
soul of the all ? 

Not from the scrolls that the strongest and best of 
the fame-crowned dead 
Wrote with their lives for the world. 
Not from the records of eld where the heart of 
mankind is revealed 
In stories varied and sad, 
Not from the woods and the winds, 
Nor the mountains peaked with old snows. 
Not from the toil and the tempest of moaning and 
restless seas, 
Drank'st thou the fluctuant fervor that glows 
in thy song. 

Simple manhood wert thou, and thy heart con- 
fronted in strength 
The shows of the vanishing years. 

Feeling them all to be pageants and mutable forms 
of thyself. 



86 WaU Whitman. 

Thou knewest Poesy and Thought, 
Best births from the Life of Man, 
To be pictures and metaphors vast 
Of the ultimate Truth that, gazing within, thy 

penetrant eyes 
Saw flowing beneath and around the magical 

maze. 

God, who is Man at highest, and Nature, that toils 
up to Man, 
Dwelt in thy song and in thee, — 
Not as involved in the garb of the dim and moul- 
dering Past, 
Not as in tomes and in tombs, 
But truth, alive and afresh, 
Flowing again in the mind 
That gave up its life to be cleansed and refilled 
with that essence pure. 
Bubbling anew in the latter years of the world ! 

Presage of strength yet to be, voice of the youngest 
of Time, 
Singer of the golden dawn. 
From thy great message must come light for the 
bettering days, 
Joy to the hands that toil, 
Might to the hopes that droop. 
Power to the Nation reborn, 
Poet and master and seer, helper and friend unto 
men, 
Truth that shall pass into the life of us all ! 



DRINKING SONG. 

A WAKEN, arouse you, 
^^ Come forth unto play. 
Rejoice and carouse you, 
Night conquers the day. 

Fill up the bowl for us, 
Strengthen the song. 

Blisses shall roll for us. 
Swiftly along. 

Lo ! the glad night-time 

Much has to live 
Which the day's bright-time 

Knows not to give. 

Under the cover 

Of the blest dark 
Hope bids her lover 

Enter her bark. 

Forth to the glory. 
Lighting each star, 

Splendor-crowned story 
Where all things are ! 



87 



ALICE GARY. 

' I "HE voice of the western woods and fields 

Save for the note of woe 
That sounded ever through her song 
Its monotone dim and slow. 

The woman-heart that suffered so much, 

And clamored for the light — 
Surely for her is measureless calm 

On the farther side of the night. 

Breath-close to the common heart of man 

Her own heart lived and dwelt, 
Shook with the simpler joys earth knew. 

Its sorrows deeplier felt. 

Now she sees clear how through and through 
The ache and the pain there wrought 

A golden miracle of strangest love 
Far more than her dream or thought. 

Doubtless she raises another song 

As near to the woods and fields, 
But one through whose minor a long note thrills 

That a fragrant gladness yields. 



EPICEDIUM. 

"NT AY, but it cannot be, 

Love rose for thee sweet-starred, 
Making the winds gentlier blow 
Under his watch and guard. 

Surely thou art but asleep. 

Open thine unclosing lips. 
Lift thine eyelids set cold 

Over thine eyes' dim eclipse. 

Flowers, holy and white, 

These befit thy clear soul, 
Perfume, and light, and pure song, 

Not silence, darkness, and dole. 

How shall we bear thee hence. 

Under the pitiless skies, 
Under the marble snows, 

Forth of our lingering eyes ? 

What made our hearts so dull, 
What made our hands so weak, 

That we could hold thee not here, 
Thee whom blindly we seek. 

89 



90 Epicediwn, 

Under the cold white snows 

Wilt thou think of those left behind ? 
Nay, but thou canst not forget, 

Thou still wilt keep us in mind. 

Sweetest of praises and thanks. 

Love that is more than earth knows, 

Thanks for the gift of thyself, 
Shield thee in thy repose. 

We would not vex with complaints 
The silence where thou didst go. 

Yet our souls reach forth to thy place, 
And this thou surely must know. 



EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN. 
I. 

POET. 

T KNOW the way to many a realm of gold, 
And one I pleasure in from day to day, 
A rich and lucid realm of perfumed May, 

With valleys in the mountains fold on fold, 

And glimpses of the sea-waves shorewards rolled ; 
Glad shapes of Greece revisit the clear ray 
Of regnant sun, and the famed water-way 

Flows thence unto Bohemia, sung of old. 

War's trumpet there recalls to grander peace ; 
The prince discloses all his secret pain. 
Making the sadder truth of life more plain ; 
Love archly peeps forth from his milk-white fleece 
Of half-concealing garments, and increase 
Of patriot fervor pours a wondrous strain. 

II. 

CRITIC. 

There too I seek a mountain's upper air. 

Whence Poesy's every kingdom lies revealed, 
Bathed in the light that never shone on field 

Or river ; Landor lifts his forehead bare 

91 



92 Edjmind Clarmcc Stcdmaji, 

Unto the kissing winds, and the far blare 

Of horns re-echoes through the woods which 

yield 
King Arthur's name and knights from depths 
unsealed, 
And Browning shows the soul how passing fair. 

The lordships of the sovereign world of song 
Glow in the all-transfiguring element. 
And high above them with divine intent 
Hovers the glory whither poets throng, 
Light mixed with music, triumph over wrong, 
The splendor Dante knew beneficent. 

III. 

FRIEND OF POETS, 

Noble as song, or insight keen and deep 
Into the heart of poets, is the skill, 
Product of luminous thought and perfect will. 

To lure desire to climb the rugged steep 

Where high achievement waits, and watchers keep 
Eyes on the wheeling skies which bright stars fill. 
And flame by flame new revelations thrill 

The pulses that responsive bound and leap. 

Intimate of the Spirit of the Time, 

Friend of the Hope which through the ages runs, 

He reaches out unto the eager ones 
Whose dreams forever shape themselves in rhyme. 
And build the bridge unto the calmer clime 

Which feels the strength of more benignant suns. 



AT EVERY CRISIS. 

When the Conflict glooms and lou'ers 
And the Nation is at point to fall 
Under the whip and thrall 

Of the mad and conscienceless powers 

Whose touch is ever at her very throat. 
From the deepmost parts of her send 
Is heard the resounding roll 

Of the impassioned warning note. 



T_r ARK to the burst of the unanimous voice 

That pours from forth the Country's inmost 
hope, 
Response to those dull hearts whose vain Rejoice, 

And loudening cries of victor}^ rent the cope 
Of goodness doming the indignant land, 
And loosened rtiinous stonn on every hand. 
Now all the joined winds are full 
Of sonance nobler and desirable ; 
Not yet given over to the sordid greed 
Of men who boast the itching palm, 

93 



94 -^^ Every Crisis, 

Aroused from slumber in our hour of need, 
And shattering chains of all-benumbing calm, 

We say into your patient ear, O Earth, 
We have forgotten not our generous trust, 

Nor shamed the promise of our birth, 

Nor stand besprent with utter failure's dust. 



II. 



In woods of a subtler Time-world, 

The spiritual image of this. 
The Republic lay and slumbered, 

Secure in established bliss. 
The winds of a summer unfailing 

Blew perfumes about her face, 
And dreams of her growing fruitions 

Made peace in her heart for a space. 
But the hunters crept craftily on her. 

And fettered her glorious limbs. 
And strove to deepen her slumbers 

With their sorcery of sensuous hymns. 
Meanwhile Disgrace and Disaster 

Made havoc upon the realm. 
And the shameless among her children 

Grasped hold of the country's helm. 
She slept and joy of her slumber 

Half lulled us too to repose. 
And darkened our eyes to the future. 

Grown forgetful of our woes. 
But the scorn of the insolent master, 

And sound of his merciless whip. 



At Every Crisis. 95 

Have broken the spell of the blindness 

That on us began to slip. 
We raised our voice and our crying 

Pierced far to her secret abode, 
And she shook off her chains like dewdrops, 

And forth to our helping she strode. 
She spoke and the scourge that threatened 

Vanished more fleet than the air, 
She gazed and the Nation trembled 

Into heights of being more fair. 

III. 

O spirits of the great departed. 

Watching the seed you sowed in life. 
Immortal souls and truest-hearted 
Of all who plunged into the strife 
Of our deep-colored years. 
You shall not see your fields neglected, 

Nor all undone your strenuous task. 
Our heads bowed down and minds dejected. 
Beneath their power who lie and bask 
Where you and your great peers 
Yet left unto our fears 
Pondered upon the country's weal 
And those high deeds but large hearts feel. 
We grant you this most firm assurance, 

We shall set foot upon the way 
Made certain by your calm endurance, 
And leading straight into the day 
Of national honor's might ; 



^6 A^ Every Crisis, 

The echoing words of warning spoken 

By you within the elder time, 
We shall forget not, and in token 

That our endeavors must make rhyme 
With your intents aright. 
And aims with hope alight, 
We broke the bonds wherewith they held us 
Who forth on alien paths compelled us. 



IV. 



Thus do we walk secure and growing masters still 
Of our fair fate and Freedom's firm establish- 
ment ; 
We should not falter more but up the steepmost hill 
Climb with unwearied step until the Great Event 
Will sunwise flood the world and from just Free- 
dom's flame 
The star-like nations all will gather fire and glow. 
Till Error's latest ghost will seek Night's deepening 
shame, 
And every vale and hill the reign of gladness 
know. 



ROSES. 

T WANDERED lonesome and depressed 

Along a barren road ; 
The sun was in the west 

And faintly showed 
A dim and half discolored face 
Through clouds that held the sunset's place. 

I heard no sound of wave or bird, 

The air was gray and chill, 
And in me scarcely stirred 

The languid will 
To cast from me the dull dismay 
That clasped me with the lengthening way. 

But suddenly I turned and saw 
One tree deep-leaved and tall. 

Possessed of might to draw 
All eyes and call 

The heart back from the shadowy land 

Where hope uplifts no beckoning hand. 

For round it roses twined and clung, 

And in the risen breeze 
The blossoms swayed and swung ; 

97 



98 Roses, 

As one who sees 
A friend's dear face amid a throng, 
My soul awoke and grew more strong. 



Just then the waning sunset spurned 
The dusk that gathered strength, 

And all the roses burned 
Like stars at length, 

And I felt power to walk the road 

Where such like splendor shone and glowed. 



THE XEW WORLD. 

Love thou thy land, with love far-brought 
From out the storied Past, and used 
Within the Present, but transfused 

Thro' future time by power of thought. 

— Texxysox. 



99 



©teure, mul^tger ©egler ! ^§ mag ber 2Bt^ ^x^ 

Unb ber @d)tf f er am ©teuer f cn!en bie Iciff ige |)anb. 
gmmer, immer na^ SOSeft 1 S)Drt mu^ bie ^iifte fic^ 
geigen, 
Siegt fie bod) beutli(^, unb liegt f($Iummernb bor 
$einem 33erftanb» 
%xaut bem leitenben (Sott imb folge bem fditueigenbeu 
SBeltmeer ! 
2Bar fie ho^ ntcfit, fie ftieg je^t ou§ ben ^^nt^^n 
empor. 
9Rtt bem (5Jeniu§ ftel^t bie 5^atur in efeigem SBunbe ; 
SSag bie eine tierfprtdit, leiftet bie anbre getcifj. 

— 6 (filler. 



ICX) 



THE NEW WORLD. 

PROEM 

TO THE WOMEN OF AMERICA. 
I. 

'HP HE century's unrelenting strength of quest 
Has followed Thought through blossoms 
and through weeds, 
And found (men say) that every pathway 
leads 
Into a cloudland where the footing prest 
Is the Insubsistence of a sea's unrest ; 

An island in an ocean of mere dream, 
The life which hoped a truest and a best 
Learns that the best and truest only seem ; 
A bitter, helpless creed ! 
No wonder-working deed 
Can thence draw vigor which should surely 

stream 
Through all its pulses, and its fire must deem 
Itself a strange subversion of the law 
Holding vague insecurity in awe ; 
A luminous truth that truth is built on ignorance. 
And Time's endeavor vast the dazzling gift of 
chance ! 

lOI 



102 To the Women of America, 

II. 

Nay, we are not deceived ; no lampless night 
Glooms round the world and hope with its 

despair ; 
Thought winged rises into regions fair 
Where is the dominant, all-transfiguring light ; 
Faith has revealed the heart of Love aright 
That beats through history's tempest and its 
roar, 
The felt decadence of the selfless might 

Sweeps from the skies the cloud-heaps more 
and more ; 

Who now shall further doubt 
i That a most dismal rout 

Waits the dull fears, whose threatenings loud 

and sore, 
With bannered hosts, against our temples 
bore? 
Unshattered on the Heavenward-looking hill 
The marble splendor fronts the sunrise still ; 
The blue-eyed Goddess smiles and turns her un- 
veiled shield 
Upon the invading bands, who strew the smoking 
field. 

III. 

Yet progress has been devious and slow : 
The Spirit sometimes has been out of breath 
And pale unto the very verge of death ; 

Fierce as the mountain torrent's sudden flow, 



To the Women of America, 103 

Erratic as the wildest winds that blow, 

The movement oft has seemed to rush and 
fall 
Down steeps and crags where safety might 
not go : 
Then the swift stream has made a sharp 
recall 

Into its truer bed, 
And by some influence led 
That keeps its foam-flecked waves in juster 

thrall. 
Has bounded forward to the longed-for hall,, 
Windy and large, with changing sky, and free„ 
The waters' end and aim, the brilliant sea ; 
So hope, the sea-gull, lifts his more adventurous 

wings. 
Lured by the flaming sun wherewith the wide 
world sings. 

IV. 

Some clear-eyed angel must have watched and 
tended 
The growths of love and patience in the 

heart. 
Some wisdom guarded with divinest art 
Gentleness, faith, and sweet assurance, blended 
Into a dream which saw the storm tran- 
scended ; 
Chief wonder that such fragile blooms sur- 
vived 



104 ^^ ^^^ Women of America, 

Amid the conflict seemingly never ended, 
Chief miracle that they none the less con- 
trived 

To taste the finer air 
Which is their daily fare ; 
Securely in the rudest bosom hived, 
And from the sternest gloom and rage re- 
vived, 
Their very slightness gave them strength to 

gain 
Gradual possession of the changed domain ; 
For they are of the tribe which toil and strive the 

best 
When they are needed most and days are dismalest. 



V. 



Love felt the bitterness in those ancient days, 
Being forced to mask as passion base and 

rude, 
And mother of a fierce and brawling brood, 
Hatreds that used the noonday's sovereign 

blaze 
To lamp man further on destruction's ways ; 

Yet even then Love knew to claim and charm, 
And hold the impregnable and awless gaze ; 
Amid the wanton revelry of harm 
Arose the prophetess 
Touched by God's own caress. 
And led the clan in hours of dire alarm ; 



To the Women of America. 105 

So woman's weak and terrorless right arm 
Pointed the pathway men were glad to take, 
And then as now her words were strong to 
wake 
The trembling higher moods, that slowly came to 

win 
The place of gradual rule and power the soul 
within. 



VI. 

But Love was lured by glamour of delight 
Into forgetfulness of loftier aims, 
And sank to depths that were not unlike 
shame's ; 
Set in a paradise of softest might. 
And lulled in dreams that made the heavens a 
slight 
And empty thing to lose, weighed in the 
scale 
With sense imperial, and suffused aright 
With the refined and subtly sweet avail, 
The hours wore on apace, 
Touching with hands that lace 
And part in a strange dance's measured 

pale, 
And pleasure said at heart its faint All 
hail ! 
Lest too loud speaking should evoke the death 
Which must wait on such perilous charmed 
breath ; 



io6 To the Women of America, 

Shut in these mist-built walls the world's strength 

feminine 
Slumbered, but knew in visions that its sleep was sin, 

VII. 

Could the imprisonment last ? Nay, warrior 
queens 
Threw the frail chains from off them like 

clear dew 
Shed from the flank of lioness when new 
The sanguine sunrise bursts the leafy screens ; 
Or radiant motherhood pre-eminent leans 

From its enforced seclusion and requires 
Room for the growth whose dear supremacy 
weans 
From base subjection to unleashed desires ; 
Or the lithe sorceress 
With eyes of wild excess 
Warmed her ambitions at great empire's 

fires ; 
Or the loud triumphs of impassioned lyres, 
Mixed with low wailings of a life suppressed, 
Floated across the time like foam on crest 
Of fluctuant waters, or a meteor's lingering track, 
Paling the stars themselves, over night's depth of 
black. 

VIII. 

The masculine might of will arose supreme 
In the white mid of heaven ; now woman- 
hood, 



To the Wo7nen of America. io7 

Co-equal, potent, fair, beside him stood. 
No mistress and no daughter, some bright 

dream 
Of golden wisdom, or a vague foregleam 
Of love's own pureness, but that love's great 
whole. 
That wisdom's rich and self-concentred stream 
Having known grief and ruler of the soul ; 
A new life was begun, 
Lit by a female sun. 
Wherewith earth thrilled from its stern pole 
to pole, 

As hope sweeps through the reaches of the 
soul ; 

The future spoke unto the present pale, 
The new light overflowed the horizon's veil. 
The dominations barbarous of the twilight heard 
Above them sound the rumor of their dooming 
word. 

IX. 

Two equal powers in all life's separate spheres. 
Two streams of influence working out the 
good. 

Two infinite forms of potent servanthood, 
Two strengths arrayed against dark doubts 

and fears, 
The feeling whose fine clearness knows and 

hears, 

The intelligence that is sweet warmth and 
glow, 



I08 To the Women of America. 

The instinct whose forthrightness never veers, 
The thought which pierces thorough sense 
and show, 

With freedom everywhere 
To build the high and fair, 
Each being rich soil for other's hand to sow. 
And inner space where nobler harvests grow. 
Life's centre found in each and outer rim 
Reaching beyond the stars most distant-dim, 
Until the end is gained where temporal difference 
Fades in the light of heaven, supreme, unstained, 
intense. 



X. 



O Western World ! what the long strain and 
toil 
Of the mighty periods wrought and bravely 

won 
Leave unto you the mightier toil undone ; 
Here is the land of promised wine and oil, 
Here is the State which many failures soil 
Incarnated anew and strong once more. 
Alert, high-hearted, and equipped to foil 
The dangers that confront us with their 
roar ; 

Here is the land of gold 
Which wise men seek to hold. 
Not gold whose heapings mock with longing 

sore. 
But the pure metal which for helmet wore 



To the Women of America, 109 

And shield the brave who saw and loved the 

right, 
And thence were filled with the eager con- 
quest's might ; 
O golden land of ours ! Arise and strive to be 
Time's purposes attained, Freedom and Victory ! 



I. 

THE OLD WORLD. 

In the great morning of the world, 
The Spirit of God with might unfurled 
The flag of Freedom over Chaos, 

And all its banded anarchs fled, 
Like vultures frighted from Imaus 

Before an earthquake's tread. 

— Shelley. 



Ill 



THE OLD WORLD. 



I. 



OD'S Thought rose clear before him and 
he said : 

" Lo ! I will fashion for mine eyes to see 
The mighty miracle of Liberty ; 
Unto my will shall many wills be wed, 
With mine own life shall lesser lives be fed, 

With mine own being filled and wondrous fire^ 
The increasing light by which all hearts are led 
Unto the summit of supreme desire ; 
From glowering suns and stars, 
From elemental wars. 
From interflux of powers and savage ire 
That bid the engirding night pause and ad- 
mire. 
From anguish and despair, the wordless brood 
That haunt the expanse of forests primal-rude, 
I will bring forth that mine unenvying soul may 

know 
The lofty love wherewith but Freedom's self can 
glow." 

"3 



114 The Old World, 

II. 

Then forth into the night a tumult spread, 
The fierce contentions of contrarious powers, 
And loud the noise was of the risen hours, 
And each one on the lust of battle fed, 
And life seemed with the horror stricken dead ; 

Then crescent, pale, mysteriously born, 
Like a low word divinely breathed and said. 
Light rose on the abyss whose ravenous scorn 
Lay soothed into a smile. 
And slowly perished while 
The blue skies rose above, and overworn 
The void gave way where earths with many 
a horn 
And curving gulf held back the seething waves, 
And mastered them and ruled them as the 
slaves 
Of large intents to come, and grasses clothed the 

rocks 
And blossoms burned amid in softly colored flocks. 



III. 



So shone the glory of the sun and night 

Became resplendent with her stars and moon, 

And life began to tremble where its boon 

Had fallen on silence, and the morn's firm light 

Broke its strange trance, and into joy and sight 

Burst the quick dance of wondrous sensitive 

things, 



The Old World, 115 

And seas were peopled with vast forms of 
might, 
And in the trees a myriad music rings, 
And the untimorous sod 
By manifold shapes was trod, 
And lo ! in forest deep, beside clear springs, 
And on the mountain sides where each wind 
sings, 
Beneath the skies where gold clouds rose and 

fled. 
Like breaths of bliss when hope and aim are 
wed. 
While expectation knew how far the miracle ran 
Beyond its farthest, came the consummation, Man. 

IV. 

In the cold dusk of caverns and by waves 
Of inland waters or on island shores 
Roared and resounded the first reinless wars 
Of nameless and unnumbered tribes ; fierce 

slaves 
Of bitter passion and the fear which graves 

Its horror deep upon the heart, and makes 
The world a vast impendence whose gloom 
laves 
Half lamplessly ; for no sharp lightning 
breaks 

It save ghost newly fled 
Into lands of the dead. 
Capricious answer giving for their wild sakes 



Ii6 The Old World. 

Who raise loud-ringing prayers like sea that 
breaks 
Upon a rock-bound shore with noisy foam ; 
Pain drives them forth from wasted home to 
home, 
And fashions serpents, rocks, or trees into a god 
Of potenced nothingness, a mind-created rod. 



V. 



But the brave sun arose in kinglihead 

From darkness of the night and men looked 

forth 
And saw his hand in blessing laid from north 
To kindlier south, and their swift longing sped 
About his footsteps ; so their watchings bred 
Hopes of emerging from their deeps of pain, 
Unto a lustrous height of being led. 
And golden zenith of unvarying gain ; 
They gladly saw the sway 
Of heroes, and the day 
Of gradual peace began to shine and reign, 
And faith to purge itself of the earth-born 
stain ; 
Then through the vales the herds began to pass 
Where the sweet waters wet the thickening 
grass. 
And round the loftier dwelling of the chief and 

king 
Rose hum of toilers and the voice of maids who 
sing. 



The Old World, 117 



VI. 



The restless thought with inner fire aflame, 
Like lamp soft glowing through its rosy 

screen, 
Illumed again what the eager eyes had seen. 
And deeper toil of spirit strove to frame 
Anew its large possessions and lay claim 
Upon a broad demesne that bloomed and 
shone 
Above it, a miraculous realm to tame. 

Ruling the outer one of grief and moan ; 
The silver dreams that throng 
Give birth to wondrous song. 
To myth and story winged with rhythmic 

tone, 
And hopes that are the very spirit's own ; 
Whence flow a greater mastery and skill 
Which hold the tribes in friendlier chain and 
will. 
And bind in golden sheaves what has been sought 

and done 
And are the presage of the height already won. 



VII. 



Then order rose beside the calm-waved sea, 
First subsidence of the submerging fate, 
A mighty people and a kingdom great, 

Homaging strength of glorious ancestry. 

Their king was father ; his wise empery 



Ii8 The Old World. 

Ensouled his subjects and confirmed their 
deed, 
So that they grew and wove for men to be 
A fabric of observance where the need 
Of worship of the law 
Stood forth in perfect awe ; 
A noble issue with the power to breed 
The thoughts that who would live must 
know and read ; 
Their seer, Confucius, spoke such words to 

men 
As have not ceased their sounding, denizen 
Of the high heaven of meek obedience, leader sure 
Into the land of peace which shall at last endure. 

VIII. 

Under the fervid skies, and *mid the growth 
Of tangled forests where the mountains vast 
Circle the shaded glens, a gloomy past 
Enwraps a nobler people ; ever loth 
To grasp the present firmly, seeing both 

The worlds of earth and heaven in mist of 
dreams 
Enrobed and mingled, they seemed bound by 
oath 
Of high allegiance to the One who gleams 
Recedingly on the gaze 
Turned Himwards ; by what ways 
Of severence from the body, down what 
streams 



The Old World. 119 

Of anguish did they seek Him ; the land 
teems 
With monstrous shapes and visions that en- 
thrall ; 
And chiefly you, O Buddh, the foiled ones call 
Savior and friend, you clothed in contemplation's 

rest, 
And finding loss of all and nothingness the best. 



IX. 



Forth came the sun of Persia, worshippers 
Of golden fires warring upon the dark, 
And dimly conscious of the answering spark 
That lights each heart with dream of truth, 

and errs 
Not in such dreaming ; lofty characters 

Of fixed purpose to bear unto men. 
Despite the frowning hindrance which deters, 
The glow of spirit trembling back again 
Unto the sovereign splendor, 
As star is star's attender ; 
The soldier people rose from rocky glen 
And rivered plain, and earth was gladdened 
when 
Their victories brought the myriad tribes to be 
The children of the flame whose leaping free 
And wind-souled bounding skywards it was joy to 

make 
A symbol of the hope that bums for all men's 
sake. 



120 The Old World, 



X. 



Beside the inland deep whose blue-waved flow 
Makes path dividuous unto luring realms, 
That visioned speed the flight of fearless 
helms 
Breaking through veils of distance, whither go 
The race's hopes, which dimly seem to know 

The fate of freedom showing like a sun 
On the sky's verge, where luminous mists rise 
slow, 
Dispersing from before the blaze begun, 
The heroic sailor land 
Uplifts her puissant hand ; 
Lo! white-sailed commerce bids her mariners 

shun 
No vague far water-ways, nor leave undone 
A toil that wrests new lands from weltering 

seas ; 
Brave like her god, much toiling Hercules, 
And finding even pain a mystery of the heart 
Disclosing devious paths of conquest's peerless art. 



XI. 



O wondrous people of the tortured fate. 

People grown strong with very sight of God, 
Strong to make live your stormy period 
In the wide soul of earth forever, hate 
And dark despair upon your footsteps wait 
For weary centuries ; giving God to man, 



The Old World, 121 

Revealing the sure mean to dissipate 

The bitterness of woes that rose and span 
A mist of fear around him 
Age-long that held and bound him, 
Ye failed in your own destiny and wan 
A gloomy severance from the hope that ran 
Like a swift bearer of the brilliant torch 
Before you ; now within the thronged porch 
Of the white temple of the future ye too stand 
And your own God will ope and answer your de- 
mand. 

XII. 

What looms against the purple air, white flame 
Of stone that seems to climb and to aspire, 
The winged thing of manifold desire 
Before it, brooding and depressed with shame, 
The dumb eyes sad with question and the 
blame 
Of sore defeat ? has Heaven no answer fit ? 
Lo ! the soul waits, judged and set free to 
claim 
The guerdon, in the citadel, unlit 
By lamp of any hope, 
And lingering out the scope 
Of its great longing ; near the temples sit 
Memnonian figures and the walls are writ 
With scrolls of ancient days, but through the 
; aisles 

Oppression hovers and the voiceless piles 



122 The Old World, 

Answer not anything and toward the silver sea 
The dreaming land looks whence the wished re- 
sponse must be. 



XIII. 



In after days, O dim-eyed Orient, 

Your countless armies crossed the wind- 
swept straits 
And shook the soil where fearless Freedom 
waits 
Your foiled attack ; backwards you fled fore- 
spent 
And baffled in your mighty world-intent ; 
Your eyes were wan with pallid dreams and 
dreads, 
Your footsteps faltered on the ways besprent 
With battle's wreck, and the imperial heads 
Of Europe's leaders young 
Upon your dazed sight sprung. 
And your vast half-thoughts sank into live 

beds 
Of world-remembrances, the potent dead's 
Last influx into Power's re-arisen bloom ; 
You could not rend the heavy primitive doom 
That swathed you and the fire of soul and joined 

God 
Burst on the plains which beaten hordes of yours 
had trod. 



The Old World, 123 

XIV. 

O land most radiant of the ancient world, 
Which burst the troubled dream wherein 

time lay, 
And shone the crimson dawn of very day 
And life arisen in fields with dew impearled, 
And over which the vanishing vapors curled, 

Uncovering the sky and mounting sun. 
Before you fear and wrath swept downwards 
whirled 
To the deeps of the abysses unbegun ; 
Freedom awoke with Greece, 
And violet-crowned peace. 
The soul was born and thought's first vic- 
tory won, 
God stood in manhood's guise, and the fore- 
done 
Base monsters of the ancient dread and terror 
Sank backwards from their pride of height and 
error. 
Being made subservient to the splendid dance of 

Love 
And Beauty, come to earth from realms of Powers 
above. 

XV. 

Unto world-conquest you marched forth, O 
Rome, 
Grandest of powers in the long roll of time, 



124 The Old World. 

And shaper of the commonweal sublime 
In which all peoples found a place and home ; 
You knew with your firm legions on to roam 

And bind more wonderful than theirs a law 
Upon the toiling kingdoms ; in the tome 
Of God's own strength your searching in- 
sight saw 

A form of dominance 
That held your charmed glance ; 
And long as sovereignty kept close your awe 
Set on man's right to build, bereft of flaw, 
His inner life of choice into brave sight 
Of majesty and rule and visible might. 
The world was all your own ; deepener of thought 

to will, 
Although your own hand slew you, yet you rule 
earth still. 



XVI. 



Next rose the star of wonder in the east. 
And wise and lowly came to worship where 
The babe lay in the manger ; light more fair 
And from diviner realms led to the feast 
Which welcomed chief the one who came as 
least ; 
Earth's monarchies and national gods 
Trembled upon their thrones, and day increased 
With passing of the worn-out periods ; 
The realm of the within 
Was opened, and the din 



The Old World, 125 

Of outer pomp fell with the lictor's rods ; 
From the great forest's moist and sun-flecked 
sods 
Swept the blue-eyed renewer and for him 
God rose in spirit and truth ; the Orient dim 
Clasped hands with ardent Greece, and knowledge 

of the soul 
Glowed on the peoples as their life's supremest 
goal. 

XVII. 

The time lay weltering in mere shame and fear, 
Monstrous with hopelessness and strange 

self-scorn 
Whence every form of wild desire was born, 
And passions that fulfilment made more drear. 
There was but one huge empire, and the near 

Self-slaughter in its dead forgetfulness 
Of elder purposes made it appear 

Mere evanescence into space ; to bless 
The uncharactered vastitude 
And pour life fierce-renewed 
Into that chaos of world-wide distress, 
And cleanse with storm for touch of God's 
caress 
Upon his children's forehead, burst and ran 
The foaming hordes of the barbarian, 
And power again ensouled with what must surely be 
Saw freedom's sun cloud-burdened risen above the 
sea. 



126 The Old World, 



XVIII. 



Sure inwardness and self-unfolding thought, 
Spirit's fine motions in each struggling heart, 
The whole of life resurgent in the part. 
Were new achievements ; truth within was 

brought 
Unto a growing vivid radiance, wrought 

By troubled flight from the mere tangible ; 
Pulsings of soul the old world never sought, 
And nobler governance of holier will. 
The blonde-haired Northener 
Felt in him start and stir. 
Whence bloom transformed the meadow and 

the hill. 
Which deeper carols of the poets thrill ; 
The lands which had been savagely estranged 
Once more in brief bright unity were ranged ; 
They had gone through sad years, yet into every 

man 
Entered a love wherewith his blood more freely ran. 

XIX, 

Mistress of realms celestial, and the spouse 
Of God himself, bride of the heavenly King, 
Whose solacing song your magic lips made 
ring 
Above the weary peoples, to your house 
Of comfort which the time half disallows. 
And your hand's patient touch and domi- 
nance. 



The Old World, 127 

Fled the world-hunted and sin-branded brows 
And gathered light from your uplifting 
glance. 

O founded on God's rock, 
And shepherdess of the flock, 
Who looked for calm amid the whirl and 

chance 

Of evil days, O Church, who saw advance 

The slow sun up the higher-stretching skies, 

Until power wooed you with his glozing lies. 

You held the sacred keys, and your conviction 

turned 
The wheel of progress and with truth your deep 
eyes burned. 



XX. 



A sovereign rose, whose wise unfaltering hand 
Laid hold upon the tempest and the urge 
Of unbound passions, and within the verge 
Of careful potence bade them furl, expand, 
As listed him ; not long the roar unmanned 

Waited when death gave him a grave too deep 
For hopes that Charlemagne with brief breath 
fanned 
Into a sudden flame ; on toward the steep 
Sea of mad conflict bore 
The undiscernings sore ; 
Sheer lawlessness erected tower and keep 
Above the fields where blinded slaveries 
weep, 



128 The Old World, 

And puny trembling monarchs drank the 

breath 
Of rule empoisoned with the smell of death * 
Pale peace fled from the earth save where her 

lovers shun 
The storm within the church's anthemed orison. 

XXI. 

But heaven is never starless, and the moon 
Lifts up her silver face from boding cloud 
That hides but ill her splendor with the 
shroud 
Of storm and battle ; surer comes the boon 
Of high self-conquest, and the mystic rune 

Of freedom won from mid of fear and hate 
Shines clearer on men's brows ; forth late or 
soon, 
And rising far above the bitter fate 
That dominates the age 
Glooming its every page. 
The errant knights fare forth and lie in wait 
To force vile tyrannies from heights elate ; 
They see pure Love within the heaven of 

thought. 
Fashioned of gentle hopes, with dreamings 
wrought : 
Queen of the life and hearts that worship at her 

shrine. 
She lifts her eyes and guides them unto deeds 
divine. 



The Old World, 129 

XXII. 

Again the awakened East had risen as erst 
In hours forgotten, and the conquering 

march 
Of the arms Arabian underneath the arch 
Of many a sky had passed ; their fervor burst 
Their native deserts, and their worship nurst 

The hope of bringing back unto the One, 
Whom they named God, the peoples now im- 
merst 
In giant tasks ; but vain the victory won. 
And vain their prophet's call ; 
Against their kingdoms fall 
The Westerners who scorn their toils fore- 
done, 
And beauty risen beneath their regnant 
sun ; 
As in the days of the far older time 
The Orient reels back shattered, and the clime 
Of Europe knows them but as sombre scudding 

rack 
That winds drive from before the light's sky-cleav- 
ing track. 

XXIII. 

So was the West triumphant, and the gold 

Of growing light was conqueror of the storm 

Which had beset its dawn with gloom 

enorme ; 
9 



130 The Old World. 

The heaving billows of the conflict rolled 
Soothed by the splendor, and the hunted fold 

Of night unseasonable fled on before ; 
The heart's deep visionings became more bold 
And turned unto the sacred land which bore 
Love basely filleted 
And even mocked when dead ; 
Should they not gain the tomb ? thus more 

and more 
The life of man as one began to soar 
Before their gazings, and the memoried East 
Awoke new purposes, whose flame increased 
So that the bitter march was full of rich avail 
And truth again came sweeping down the orient 
gale. 

XXIV. 

Nor does high wisdom linger ; knowledge 
grows 
To more imperial potence and the soul 
Sees heaven's great realms above it float and 
roll, 
Centering in the pure passion-glowing rose 
Before God's throne ; whiter than sifted snows 
Love rules one heart with purpose clearer 
far 
Than old Greece thrilled with, and his rapt 
song flows 
From the time's depths, more silvern than 
the star 



The Old World. 131 

That lights the violet sky- 
Before the dayspring's eye 
Takes to itself its lucence and the war 
With night hath one more victory, scimetar 
Made for the ages' hand, and fashioned well 
Of prayer and anguish and divinest spell, 
Slaying the beast within the man and hewing way 
To where Beatrice's eyes are pursuivants of day. 

XXV. 

As in the flawless stone the mighty limbs 
And sun-turned face disclose from day to 

day 
Their loosening glory, and the shadows play 
Beneath wide eyes wherein the joyous hymns 
Of wakening life lie silent, interims 

Of loveliness and strength to hold subdued 
Worship forever, being imaged thought which 
swims 
Upon the sense with rapture still renewed, 
So 'mid the whelm and toss 
Of aims that strive and cross 
The Nation rears its forehead, and imbued 
With the heart to vanquish difference and 
feud 
Reveals a power superb, that is to set 
On the expectant world a coronet 
And sign of coming peace, and Freedom is the 

name 
The great birth bears, though vaguely known and 
sad with blame. 



132 The Old World. 

XXVI. 

Earth grew more beautiful and human life 
Swept on more nobly ; the dreams of seer 

and saint 
Gave way to joys that held without complaint 
Their revelries within the present ; strife 
Yet roars in madness where the hordes are rife 
Who pour from mythic Asia's soundless 
deeps, 
And thrust anew the rude barbaric knife 
At the city's throat amid which learning 
weeps 

Because of evil days ; 
So toward the western ways 
Greece once more bears her quenchless 

torch, and steeps 
In goldener light, and re-enthroned keeps 
Her inexhausted regnance, that is sure 
As the great stars above and must endure. 
Being part of truth eternal and the pauseless 

strength 
Which shall bring all mankind into its calm at 
length. 

XXVII. 

The golden-belted bees that hum within 
The honey-hearted flowers of pleasure fed 
The soul with strange delights, and sorcer- 
ous led 



The Old World. 133 

Her feet on poisonous paths of passion ; 

yet to win 
The beauty, which, born of the sun, had been 
The young world's longing, and to see anew 
The whole of life, its triumph, love and sin, 
Statued or risen in towers or morned to view 
In unsurpassable splendor 
Of colors fierce or tender, 
Became the time's desire ; then soft winds 

blew 
Fraught with a lighter perfume, clearer dew, 
From long unvisited realms of Poesy ; 
Birds of fresh joys sang in the new-leaved tree 
Of living disenthralled from gloom of prisoning 

dreams, 
And man walked forth beside the sky-reflecting 
streams. 

XXVIII. 

Heart of the world and mystery of time, 
Eyesight and life for which the pageant 

moves, 
Freedom, for whose fair sake adown the 
grooves 
Of ringing change from heavy slumberous 

prime 
Unto thought's latter all-transpicuous clime, 
The toil and struggle of mankind have gone ! 
Your steps have been amid the heat and rime 
Of nature's tumult, and the haggard wan 



134 The Old World, 

Despair of history, 
Lessening in slow degree 
As you emerged in your own light and on 
The hills of conquest glittered paragon ! 
O mirror sending back to heavenly powers 
Their imaged loveliness and crowned with 
flowers ! 
O unity of lands, the morning of your day 
Flashes across the verge, and holds the night at bay ! 

XXIX. 

The mountains rose benignant and the sea 
Clung to its shores with lingering lover's 

lips ; 
The world of trees and blooms sprang 
from eclipse 
And smiled as never in the past ; to be 
Thought's painted veil and the glory free 
Of the outer where the soul's high hopes are 
glassed 
Nature avowed her part in life ; men see. 
His splendors equally around him cast, 
The sun uprisen on high, 
Centre of worlds that vie 
In happy worship ; they knew well at last 
The need of firm obedience and their vast 
Divisions sought to close and move in tune ; 
The night with blossom-stars or plenilune. 
The day with flame amidmost of the curving skies, 
Held the fair earth as love in arms of lover lies. 



The Old World. 135 

XXX. 

The torch of thought gleamed on the caverned 
rocks, 
And earth made bare her heart ; no smallest 

thing 
But held the secret wherewith the planets 
ring 
And make the music that enfolds and locks 
The universe in its embrace ; the mocks 
Of elders, eye-bound with dead loves and 
hopes. 
Fled in the winds of search like colored flocks 
Of leaves at autumn-tide ; time's horoscopes 
Were prescient of resolve 
And effort that revolve 
The reborn planet ; the fetters and old ropes 
Of dim opinion fell, weak as mere tropes 
Of sounding sophistries, when the urgent hours 
Arouse the soul of man with all its powers. 
When the voice of prophet calls the wandering feet 

and brains 
Back to the needed toil on ever-harvested plains. 

XXXI. 

One deep intention ruled the restless soul 
Of all the period, shook it with vague thrill 
Of grand success, nerved its converging will 
Unto sheer fearlessness, and held the whole 
White-heated fervor bound unto the pole 



136 The Old World, 

Of a great action ; star that rose to guide 
The impetuous firm endeavor to the goal 
For which the unwearied centuries fleet and 
ride 

The tempest-peopled sea 
Was search for land where the tree 
Of Freedom might grow surely and abide 
The hour whose striking had been long 
denied. 
Fixed in the heart of men and impulse strong 
Was need to grasp the earth and to prolong 
Their nobler life about its curving sides, absorb 
Its sphered secret, and command the obedient orb. 

XXXII. 

Then Freedom might forever build its home 
Upon that conquest, and the very stars 
Rising from out the infinite dark thrust bars 
Away from their best knowing, and the dome 
Of heaven hold no more mystery, and to roam 
From light to light of gradual truth become 
The joy of search, feeling on its brow the foam 
And wind of thought's great ocean where 
the dumb 

Forth-reachings of the past 
Fruition find at last ; 
One orb being solved, the distant maze and 

hum 
Of worlds whose multitudes had dared to 
numb 



The Old World, 137 

The earlier gropings rise in ordered song, 
Repeating the one story ; from the strong 
Desire of the great ages leaps divine and mild 
The longed-for, pure-eyed goddess, Fate's Fate- 
slaying child ! 



XXXIII. 

Also the truth that filled the restless mind 
Of the rapt seeker found a dwelling place 
Which should repel time's malice, face to 
face 
With old discoveries bring all human kind. 
Hold wisest memories safe and unresigned 

From regent purpose, cast the miracle far 
Of budding knowledges like seed confined 
In fruitful soil breaking in bloom as star 
Is clad with silver light 
To wage war on the night 
And conquer, burst the imprisoning bond 

and bar 
Of glooms that sought to hold the soul and 
mar, 
And build a realm where men's just dreams 

might tread 
And know their strength and bliss of kingli- 
head ; 
This too was granted them ; behold in hall and 

nook 
Of simpler life, yea everywhere, the charmed book ! 



138 The Old World. 

XXXIV. 

Voyings forth to the east and wonder-tales 
Of golden monarchs in clime-favored lands \ 
The western ocean writes on sparkling sands 
Its open secret ; round the globed earth sails 
Wide forethought fearless ; all the eastern gales 
Fraught with the glow of story waft the oars 
On westward paths unto the rose-brimmed vales 
Whither quick fancy lifts its wings and soars ; 
Upon one soul more high 
Than the ensphering sky, 
One heart great to include hope's boundless 

shores, 
And prophecy's divinely fashioned lores, 
Rose the entrancing vision ; presage he 
Of wonders and achievements yet to be ; 
Into the vasty dark his ship pursued its way, 
Secure that westward was the spring of man's bright 
day ! 



IL 

THE MAN. 

The sun set, but set not his hope ; 
Stars rose ; his faith was earlier up ; 
Fixed on the enormous galaxy, 
Deeper and older seemed his eye ; 
And matched his sufferance sublime 
The taciturnity of time. 



— Emerson. 



139 



THE MAN. 



I. 



WHO knows the secret of the sunrise ? who 
Shall say what splendor of the exhaust- 
less sun 
Across the sombre waiting skies shall run ? 
Who knows the point from which the first wind 

blew 
That brought the hidden sky again to view ? 

On what far tip of Ocean's many waves 
Fell the first moonbeam ? or what drop of dew 
Hid first amid the rose's petals, slaves 
To the sweet dream of love 
Her coming forth hath wove ? 
What edge of storm struck first the trembling 

knaves 
Who king earth's follies, and what yawn of 
graves 
Oped first to enclose them from the lightning 

stroke 
Fallen and quivering ? or what first ray broke 
141 



142 The Man, 

From what far heavens to shine within the hearts 

of men 
And bring them back to life and truth and joy 

again ? 

II. 

Surely the ages climb unto the Deed ! 

Beneath the sod the slow seed bursts and 

toils, 
The laboring spirit laughs at vain recoils 
On its intention ; still the patient need 
Moulds the great world and bids arise, exceed, 
The light that darkling lay amid dense scorn ; 
Denials perish of its right to lead 

To spaces where its glow increased to morn 
Is promise of the day 
Having the word to say 
Which leaves old crimes disseated and for- 
lorn, 
While faith resurgent in the just is born ; 
As the earth's rivers flow unto the sea, 
Time's unseen tides unto the yet to be. 
So might and things and life speed to the centre 

where 
The new achievement leaps forth to the sun and 
air. 

III. 

Deep in one heart the fateful future bides, 
A point of expectation and of thought, 



The Man, 143 

Which have this frail and slender vessel 
wrought 
For their enswathement ; his the dream that 

rides 
Into the haven where its storm-swept sides 
May wreathe themselves in flowers of tri- 
umph won ; 
Deep in his soul the new evangel hides 

Toward which the confluent streams of hope 
have run 

Since light was on the sea 
Where his great task should be ; 
Upon that suffering head the winds and sun 
May beat, whitening his locks, and the un- 
done 
Intent may seem like failure, and his eyes 
May see through tears morn after morn arise, 
But all the stars of heaven and the sun's swiftest 

fires 
Bring on the hour which shall respond to his de- 
sires. 



IV. 



Italia ! with full hands you have ever come 
Unto the feast of nations ; rise once more, 
Be your grand self that all men may adore ; 

Your cry of war in olden days struck dumb 

The dwellers of the farthest earth ; your sum 
Of glories made a crown for your fair brow 

Which was the light of law and masterdom 



144 ^^^^ Man, 

Burning within our house of rule even now ; 
Your Church's holy flame 
Made clear the sacred name 
When darkness held the lands ; later your 

vow 
Unto high beauty led you to endow 
The joy of men with its best heritage 
Of picture and of marble ; and your rage 
Of large beneficence would not have wholly won 
Its height of giving, had you urged not forth your 
son 



V. 



To find the newer world far in the west 

Toward which some instinct in the heart of 

man 
Pointed since first the flow of time began ; 
The brooding boy beside your waves sat blest 
In a large dream of earth's alluring best, 
A forefeel of the way his ships must go, 
Borne on the treacherous subsidence and crest 
Into the light that later eyes should know ; 
Within him burned and thrilled 
The purposes world-willed 
For which all skies are globed and all winds 

blow ; 
Son of a sailor-city and the foe 
Of whatso night hung over distant seas 
And hid from sight uncaptived lands and 
leas. 



The Man. 145 

His thought surged far and high and gazed upon 

of stars 
Virginal, which beaconed him from forth their 

speeding cars. 

VI. 

What the great halls of learning told his soul 
Of mystic project and alert command, 
The golden memories of sighted land 
By ancient wanderers on the toss and roll 
Of half-forgotten waves, what murmuring stole 

Upon him of the vaguely-looming fate 
That was to be his anguish and his goal, 
Found in him the resolve whose form and 
date 

Are not the fruit of time 
And grow within a clime 
Which has heaven's smile for sky ; calmly 

he sate 
And what was kin unto that mood and mate 
Came to his hand and gave its message up, 
As one drinks wine from out a jewelled cup. 
And he went forth strong in the truth and firmly 

bent 
To search for lore of the far realm where'er he went. 

VII. 

The sea knew well her master ; from her came 
A voice of urgence and a cry that stung 
His heart to answer and about him clung 



146 TJie Man. 

A host of visionings that roused to flame 
His sense of kingship ; his the hand to tame 

Her wild upleapings, make her bear the yoke, 
And fawn about the keels in happy shame 
That into her close western secrets broke ; 
He knew her scorn and smile 
And fathomed every wile, 
Treading in joy the hollowed pine or oak ; 
The astonished sailors felt the subtle stroke 
Of still assurance when the headland rose 
Before them and the morning brought swift 
close 
To the mutinous fury facing the near Afric sand 
And impotent to make him seek the wished-for 
strand. 

VIII. 

He held the wonder in his heart and soon 
From all the winds came confirmation strong 
To bear his swift previsionings along ; 

He followed every track beneath the moon 

And sought from south to north whatever rune 
Deciphered showed the path he was to tread ; 

Nor any region might refuse the boon 
Unto his asking ; forth his steps were led 
Unto the extreme shore 
That then the honor wore 
Of searchings far and wide into the dread 
And awful marvels that the ocean bred ; 

And knowledge came to aid him and her speech 



The Man, I47 

Pointed unto the fruitage in his reach ; 
The noble Florentine, the traveller of the skies, 
Like a new planet saw the new West glow and rise. 

IX. 

The very light was filled with fair sea tales 
As if the sun were leagued with his chief 

hope ; 
A luminous mist of story and of trope 
Swept through the lands and girt his visioned 

sails 
With the exalting bliss that never fails. 

What if he knew not half the magic lore 
Which came down wafted on the freighted gales 
From the dim past, yet Plato's vanished shore 
And the stern Roman's dream 
Seen in the stormless stream 
Of light prophetic, and what picture more 
Shone to complete the world, rejoiced to soar 
Into the heaven of his musings, cling 
To his enlinking thought, and there to sing 
A music that by many had been softly heard 
And iterant in refrain the East and West averred. 

X. 

Mornwards were realms of fairy ; far Cathay 
Drew with its towers and singular roofs of 

gold, 
And farther towards the springs of light the 

bold 



148 The Man. 

Discoverer saw the foam that starred the way 
To great Zipangu ; who should say him nay ? 

In Asia's dimness potent Prester John 
Ruled still (so spoke their dreamings) and the 
day 
Of rosy lustre had not fled and gone 
From glorious Kublai Khan 
Whose width of regnance ran 
Unto the hither sea ; his thoughts sped on 
Across the sun-kissed waves and dwelt upon 
The fortunes of the lucky brothers twain 
And Rubruquisandmore whose deeds were vain 
Because the hated Turk usurped the Orient ; 
Upon the western skies his hopes were set and bent. 



XI. 



Scant was the bread he won, and hard the toil 

Of many askings ; you might surely deem 

The country would not unresponsive seem 

That bore the Prince of Seamen and whose 

spoil 
Of treasures won with strength no storm could 
foil 
Called his work hers who passed the haunted 
cape 
To distant Calicut ; but the stern coil 
Of sharp denial gave no sure escape 
From its coercive prison ; 
The light was not arisen 
Upon his weary darkness ; many an ape 



The Man, 149 

Of dullard greatness would yet grin and gape 
Upon the calm severity that held 
Its course unshaken, patient, and unquelled, 
Scorning the Portuguese device which basely sought 
To grasp the certain prize and bring his life to 
naught. 

XII. 

But Love looked on his eager step and brow 
And sang him melodies to lull and cheer 
His bitter waiting ; children blithe and dear 
Climbed on his knee, and made the time allow 
A respite from the deep and mastering vow ; 
Nobly formed was he, strong and large of 
frame, 
The potent eye clear with light to endow 
A darkling multitude ; the furrows came 
Full early and the face 
Revealed across its space 
The unresting purpose and themindof flame ; 
A vigorous soul that saw the heights of fame, 
Being part of large intents ; and if at last 
Love in another guise beside him passed. 
Be sure heaven frowned not on that simple paradise 
Nor gazed upon it with stern, unrelenting eyes. 

XIII. 

Moreover when he claimed the right to rule 
The realms he found and portions of the 
store 



ISO The Man, 

Of riches they gave up, what did he more 
Than emphasize the part he played ? The 

cool 
Winds of the morning sweeping o'er the pool. 
That seeks to hold the sunrise on its breast^ 
Capricious, wayward, yet are not the fool 
To yield one atom of the waters' best 
Which they believe is theirs ; 
No flower the summer bears 
But calls the sun his own, and the wide west 
In days to come should each with the all 
invest ; 
He was the master of the islands far. 
He was the late and slowly rising star. 
Beneath which burst their beauty from the dark- 
ness' thrall. 
And he of right was ruler and great admiral. 

XIV. 

Forth fared he from the land that knew him 
not 
And sought the region of brave-voiced 

romance. 
About which all the winged seasons dance 
In lyric joyance, Spain, whose lofty lot 
Was to conclude the conflict unforgot ; 

Again the sense-steeped and luxurious creed 
That rose in Asia, bred amid her hot 

And desert sands, contended with the need 
For nobler self-possession, 



The Ma?t, 151 

And spirit's free confession 
Of firm allegiance to the truth whose meed 
Is to obtain the will and strength to bleed 
For those who toil and mourn ; great-hearted 

Spain, 
Fronting the expectant and sonorous main, 
Had the keen sight to pierce the mists which over- 
hung 
The outer ocean, taught by the unfearing tongue 



XV. 



That made wide Europe hear the constant 
story ; 
She bent at first a sombre deep surprise 
Upon the whitened hair and anxious eyes ; 
Her sages and her counsellors, old and hoary,, 
Sat gazing from their wisdom's promontory 

Steadfastly seaward, but a shadow lay 
Upon the outlook's still invisible glory. 
And they believed not in the nearing day ; 
But there were those who felt 
The mystery that dwelt 
In his firm words, the prince, of amplest 

sway, 
Medina-Celi, and, keen in the fray, 
The third king of the realm, Mendoza, priest 
And statesman, with the Queen's advisers, least 
Inclined to marvels, Santangel, Quintanilla strong. 
And the imperious Marchioness whose life's rich 
song 



152 The Man, 

XVI. 

Answered his own ; but now the Crescent pale 
Shrank behind clouds of war, and the pure 

Queen 
Held victory grasped ; at Santa Fe were 
seen 
The royal armament whose stern avail 
Shattered the Saracen kingdom and saw quail 

The Oriental life before the sweep 
Of nobleness that dwelt behind the mail 
Of lords and knights ; for these the moving 
deep 

Held regions secret yet 
But where their bold hopes set 
Should come to sight in forms wherein the 

leap 
Of impulse might find joyance and still keep 
Friendship with law that fetters and makes 

free ; 
For these ere long the sun's unloosened sea 
Should flow round Moorish towers wherefrom burns 

forth the cross, 
Symbol of hope and love that grow and know not 
loss. 

XVII. 

But not to you, O Europe, came the task 
To build the commonweal that shall endure 
And brighten ever till its action pure 



The Man, I53 

Grows even as time itself must seek and ask ; 
Men knew not what was hidden behind the 
mask 
The ages wove of Pomp and Power, strong 
Love, 
That throws from off its brow the glittering 
casque. 
And fills the world with the clear light 
thereof ; 

They built the narrow cell 
Wherein the accents fell 
Of Judges whom no mildness of the dove 
Kept from the serpent's keenness ; forth 
they drove 
The patient wisdom of a people sad 
With the unfinished pain their drear past had, 
And whom the New World, too, should free from 

the dark doom 
Which wove around them centuries of grief and 
gloom. 

XVIII. 

Thus the past clutched the throat of wise 
intent. 
And murdered Spain when her hand held 

the keys 
To unlock the future's happier mysteries ; 
And the defeated Moor saw once more bent 
The nations at the shrine from whence are 
sent 



154 ^^^^ Man, 

Soul-slaying vapors and a shuddering dread 
Of lordly deeds for which all time is meant. 
Gray Europe had a weary path to tread 
Unto that far seen goal 
For which the New World sole 
Waited, and whereunto her life is wed ; 
O bold discoverer high among the dead, 
Or those whose unsealed eyes behold the all. 
Great Sailor and the Future's Admiral, 
You see what land you found — not Asia's mere 

decay, 
But the Achievement's best, and gold of the New 
Day ! 



XIX. 

Yet had his sun not risen ; from his lips 
Fell in swift fervid accents his desire. 
And Talavera's eyes of smouldering fire 
Shone with a myriad doubts, a dark eclipse 
Of faith hung round him, and the longed-for 
ships 
Ploughed but the ocean of his star-lit 
dreams ; 
Time had not tried his soul enough with whips 
And scorns, for so the rigid Master deems 
He makes his servants fit 
For the hard toils which knit 
The perfect garment, firm and without 
seams. 



The Man. 155 

The world shall wear at last ; his hurt brain 
teems 
With indignation and he turns away 
Undaunted, and he girds him for the fray 
Once more ; but first he hears the words of his 

good friend, 
Marchena, strong with trust in the far-shining end. 



XX. 



His wanderings reached at last the lonely door 
Of calm La Rabida ; there the silence came 
Grateful upon his grief's consuming flame ; 
The simple cloisters gave him peace once 

more 
And the live ocean rolled up to the shore 
Its ceaseless voice of promise ; through the 
pines 
The sun looked down benignant, and the roar 
Of the far world of rivalries declines 
Into an inward murmur 
With each day growing firmer, 
Whose sense is conquest at the last ; as 

shines 
A lamp across a rocky path's confines 
Making the outlet clear, Juan Perez' faith 
Who heard him and conceived his words no 
wraith 
Of fevered fancy but the very truth, was light 
To bring the Queen to know his purposes aright. 



156 The Man. 

XXI. 



O noble priest and friend ! you reached the 
court 
And turned the Queen from conquest's mid 

career 
To hearken ; other triumphs glittered clear 
Before her, and again from Huelva's port 
The seeker came ; he saw Granada's fort 
Open its gates reluctant, and the king, 
El Zogoibi, bewail his bitter sort 

And loss which made the rich TeDeums ring 
When on La Vela's tower 
The cross bloomed like a flower 
Of heaven's own growing ; but the sudden 

spring, 
Loud with birds silent long that strove to sing, 
After the winter's weary voiceless reign, 
Was overcast with storms of cold disdain ; 
Haughtily forth he fared and reached Granada's 

gates 
When the clouds lifted and the persecuting fates 

XXII. 

Relented from their fury ; for the Queen 
Listened unto the urgings manifold 
Of Santangel, and counsel, wise and bold, 
Of the far-seeing Marchioness, whose keen 
Divinings pierced the misty ocean's screen 
And felt the deed must surely come to pass ; 



The Man, 157 

So they recalled him, and his life's changed 
scene 
Grew bright with blooms and smile of thick- 
ening grass ; 

O royal woman then 
Your hand received again 
The keys of a great realm ; in the clear glass 
Of actions yet to be whose fires amass 
Infinite stores of impulse toward the good, 
Your image permanent lies ; forth from the 
wood 
Of beasts malicious and the unrelenting dread 
You showed the way, but sought not from the gloom 
to tread. 

XXIII. 

The wind was fair, the ships lay in the bay. 
And the blue sky looked down upon the 

earth ; 
Prophetic time laughed toward the nearing 
birth 
Of the strong child with whom should come a 

day 
That dulled all earlier hours. Forth on the way 

With holy blessings said, and bellied sails. 
And mounting joy that knows not let nor stay ! 
Lo ! the undaunted purpose never fails ! 
O patient master, seer. 
For whom the far is near. 
The vision true, and the mere present pales 



158 The Man, 

Its lustre, what mild seas and blossomed vales 
Awaited you ? haply a paradise 
But not the one which drew your swerveless 
eyes ; 
Could you have known what lands were there be- 
yond the main, 
You surelier would have turned to gladsomeness 
from pain. 

XXIV. 

Light-bearer ! this did you hope indeed to be, 
Freeing the holy tomb from dominance base 
And cleansing earth's bent brow from dark 
disgrace ; 
Waited not Prester John across the sea 
With eager sons under his canopy 

Of gold and on his emerald-studded throne ? 
Wealth should you have and wide-spread 
empery 
To bring bowed hearts to Truth who heard 
their moan 

And made it yours to lift 
The heavy clinging drift 
From their sad days, the many hearts who 

lone 
And anguished suffered falsehood's mono- 
tone ; 
Such was your dream, O strong deliverer ! 
But your achievement infinite-mightier 
Planted the tree of Freedom in its foredoomed soil 
And wrested from old 111 the remnant of his spoil. 



The Man. 159 

XXV. 

What room for cold detraction's voice ? What 
gain 
In finding weakness where so much of 

strength 
Reached the far end it sought so long at 
length ? 
Grant that his soul had here and there a stain, 
The splendor of his deed must still remain 
The clear avouchment of his manhood's 
height ; 
That cannot be the truth which would constrain 
The mind to dull details and hold from 
sight 

The life that is the whole 
Vision ; the mists uproU 
From the wide landscape and the generous 

light 
Bathes in its affluence hill and stream ; the 
night 
Seeks its lair far beyond the glowing earth ; 
Here is the joy of daring and of worth ; 
If mists cling to the trees or thin clouds yet ob- 
scure, 
We ask not in the day's impendence white and 
pure. 

XXVI. 

Two worlds, from the beginning sundered, flow 
Into the stream that is the planet's life, 



i6o The Man. 

A strength showing sweet peace brought 
forth of strife ; 
The giant winds upon their wanderings go 
From the grim lands of changeless iron snow 

Unto the climes where rules the centred sun. 
And everywhere the exulting nations know 
That their approaching Destiny is one ; 
This hath the Sea-King wrought 
Whose forward leaping thought 
Felt that man's victory was but half way 

done 
Unless both realms were intimately won 
Unto the mighty goodness which is God 
And Lord of History's utmost period ; 
His hand conjoined the parted continents once for 

all, 
He looked for land and lo ! a nobler spirit-fall ! 



III. 

THE DEED. 

To cross the seas of life, naught suffices save the bark of 
faith. In that bark thp undoubting Columbus set sail, and at 
his journey's end found a new world. Had that world not 
then existed, God would have created it in the solitude of the 
Atlantic, if to no other end than to reward the faith and con- 
stancy of that great man. 

— Emilio Castelar. 



i6i 



THE DEED. 



I. 



"D EACH but the heights of truth and every 
-''^ star 
Trembles and shines for aims you seek and 

love ; 
The winds become the pursuivants thereof,, 
Their blare triumphant heralds you afar ; 
No danger can affright, no power can bar 
The stern endeavor leagued with very 
thought. 
The impassioned hope that is right's avatar 
And sees its substance surely wrought 
Into the web of time ; 
He breathes the superb clime 
Of certain victory, who, borne by naught 
From the pursuit his loftiest dreams have 
sought, 
Follows the rocky path, however steep, 
Which lovers of mankind perceive and keep ; 
All forces of the land and sea and air conspire 
To bring to pass what feeds eternity's desire. 

163 



164 The Deed. 

II. 

The soft acclaim of heaven accompanies 
The advent of the hero on the earth ; 
Nothing of wonder may attest his worth 
Or break upon and shake the revelries 
Of arrogant pleasure which concludes not his 
To ring the knell of what it holds most 
dear ; 
But where the secret place of potence is, 
And where the heart of life beats high and 
clear, 

The light's intenser glow 
And joy's superber flow 
Betoken triumph 'gainst the ancient fear ; 
The night is sorely stricken and her drear 
Control is nearly over ; every stream 
Speeds with new strength in the sun's strenuous 
stream. 
Defeat beholds with dark chagrin how all his skill 
Of strange undoing served to work the sovereign 
will. 

III. 

Now the swift hours seemed friendly ; every- 
where 
Smiled portents of success to the emprise 
Which looked for sunrise where the low day 
dies 
Into the seas incarnadine ; to dare 
Was certain conquest ; earth was all aware 



The Deed, 165 

Of the endeavor, and her heart was thrilled 
With mighty impulse that her son should fare 
Straight to the doom she long had loved and 
willed ; 

He was the very mid 
Of the intentions hid 
Within her bosom till her hands had spilled 
Enough of marvels and the unfulfilled 
Desires of her bold manchild sought the 

realms 
Beyond the sea with courage-governed helms 
Where could be built anew, free from the past's 

grim wrong, 
A home the soul might dwell in, life's last burst of 
song. 

IV. 

Now the winds rose from out the storied east, 
Freighted with all the perfumed memories 
That murmured in their brains like happy 
bees 
Seeking the hives wherein the store increased 
Of earth's best products was set for the feast 
Whereby all men recline and each is king ; 
The light wind freshened while the monk and 
priest 
Watched from his height the vessels vanish- 
ing ; 

The sea was fair as youth. 
The wind was firm as truth. 



1 66 The Deed, 

The cloven waters with a swish and swing 
Around the ship's sides seemed to close and 
sing ; 
The known shores faded and the speeding 

days 
Brought them unto the skyward-reaching blaze 
Of islanded sheer Teneriffe that pierced the night 
With its sharp cone and thrilled the unaccustomed 
sight. 

V. 

Forth into unknown seas ! and who shall say 
What keel clove those forgetful waves be- 
fore ? 
Had the dark-haired and slim Phoenician's 
prore 
Seen creaming from its thrust the fitful play 
Of those unraging waters ? or the way 

Been conscious of the Greekish mariner 
Whose fancy wantoned in the golden day 
Of lost Atlantis ? or the storm and stir 
Of an obscure unrest 
Driven a king from blest 
And firm-built power to see through misted 

blur 
Strange coasts arise and many an islander ? 
The smoothly-slipping rippled element 
Seemed false-benignant in its calm consent ; 
What vague forebodings held their inmost hearts 

appalled 
When sea was all that shone upon their sight en- 
thralled ? 



The Deed, 167 

VI. 

The sky above them glittered clear and pure, 
The vast horizons scarcely shut them in ; 
Had the strange path an end ? was theirs to 
win 
A shore beyond that solitude ? Secure 
In the far-stretching distance lay the lure 
Which siren-wise laughed in the present 
calm ? 
Or did the silver monotone endure 

Until its splendor ached, and the fierce 
qualm 

Wrought madness in the brain ? 
Farther upon the plain 
Of liquid lucence and no sign of balm 
Unto the growing fear and lifted palm ; 
Held the same law in the same certain strength 
The new and old ? or was change here at 
length ? 
These treacherous waves perchance rolled on no 

human shore, 
And vaguely westward was the infinite's opened 
door ? 

VII. 

A broken mast tossed loose from wave to 
wave ! 
A sign from the as yet unfathomed sea 
And menace to their rash temerity ! 
For who might bind her as a willing slave 
To his devisings ? was she not one grave. 



i68 The Deed. 

Pellucid, fragrant, lambent everywhere, 
Covetous of life and impotent to save ? 

But the quick birds were fearless and the air 
Upbore their flutterings, 
And the increasing rings 
Of their large flight portended something 

fair. 
Pelican, tunny fish, aught that could bear 
A happy presage woke a fleeting thrill 
Of the old hope which dimmed and lessened 
still ; 
What might survive upon the stretching lone ex- 
panse 
Save the light tribes of air, and fishes* darting 
dance ? 

VIII. 

But lo ! the sea became a tangled mass, 
A floating meadow of unnameable weeds, 
A sterile growth answering no man's needs, 
A demon-fashioned obstacle to pass, 
A moving desert covered with strange grass, 

Another horror which the water spawns. 
That aggregate of drops more clear than glass^ 
But hiding in its clearness fifty dawns 
Of ominous miracle, 
An ever variant spell 
Which while it brings to sight its wrecks, yet 

fawns 
Upon its victims ; through the yielding 
lawns, 



H 



The Deed, 169 

Starred with red berries like dull spots of fire. 
That were the signs of its condign desire, 
They cut their way at last, but now the winds were 

still ; 
What next ? when would the sea's wild fancy have 
its will ? 



IX. 

Drifting slowly unto their doom ; the glow 
Of the smooth waters to the silent right. 
Leftwards the shine of the unvarying light, 
Into the very void they seemed to go ; 
No hand with land these wastes had laughed 
to sow ; 
There was around them a crystalline peace, 
That grew more weird than night when storm- 
winds blow ; 
They might turn backwards and thus gain 
release, 

But who could surely feel 
That the reversed keel 
Might not find gulfs where even time would 

cease ? 
At night the burnished stars with soft in- 
crease 
Of flame made the far reaches visible ; 
They were a-float within a widening dell 
Of death's sheer imminence ; even as a flaw is 

found 
Dimming and shadowy inside a diamond's round. 



1^0 The Deed, 

X. 

Wherefore had shone the baleful light on 
high? 
The meteor that fell from its steep place 
And hissing met the sea's uplifted space ? 
Were the stars fixed in yonder high-domed 

sky ? 
And whence did the unchanging breezes fly ? 
Hard sailing in the teeth of winds ; and 
Spain, 
Fair land of memories, both arm and eye 
Of Europe, like a dream at morn that vain 
And fragile passed and sped, 
Or soul mixed with the dead 
And mounting upward to unfleeting gain. 
Would hardly greet them more beyond the 
plain 
Of sinuous waves into whose spell they swept ; 
Here all was other ; not even the needle kept 
Her truth in the mad realms ; yet better to be lost 
On the track homewards then on this grim sin be 
tost. 

XI. 

But the Commander swerved not from his 
trust. 
His prayers were answered while he uttered 

them, 
His eyes were fixed beyond the sunset's 
hem. 
And the fates surely could not be unjust ; 



The Deed, i/i 

His thoughts were truth itself, and so there 
must 
Rise from the deeps an answer clear and 
meet ; 
He calmed the sailors' dreads and often thrust 
Their glooms aside with foregleams of the 
feat 

Which all time should record 
Their braveries' fit award ; 
His skill pictured for them the town and 

street 
Wherethrough the Khan's life, fierce and 
golden, beat ; 
What fear of fire stones falling from above ? 
He knew them well ; besides the tomb of Love 
Who died for men must needs have freeing ; Holy- 
Writ 
Sanctioned their distant search and prophesied of 
it. 

XII. 

Yet the fierce anguish of the homeless waste 
Grew stronger, and they rose in scorn and 

hate 
Against their chief, whose madness, soon or 
late, 
Must bring the doom which they so long had 

faced 
Half helplessly; they would, no more disgraced 
And shamedly hearkening his obscure be- 
hests. 



1/2 The Deed, 

Feel their firm wits by his crazed dreams dis- 
placed, 
Nor seek these wests eked out by farther 
wests ; 

And if death came, alack ! 
It should be on the track 
Homewards ; let him go forth on dangerous 

quests 
With those unweeting that his interests 
Were not the heaven's, but intense search for 

gold 
Of which low-breathed secrets had been told 
Into his ear by lying pilots who had been 
But a short way upon the ocean's swirl and sin. 

XIII. 

The Admiral heard their loud complaints and 
called 
Unto the ships accompanying his ; 
In solemn council all their miseries 
Were spoken and the demon deep unwalled 
Tossed round them ; then the Pinzon unap- 
palled 
Voiced the great need from off the swaying 
deck 
And for a brief time held them disenthralled, 
Obedient to their Master's word and beck ; 
" Sefior, some two or three 
Of these might feed the sea ; 
And if the hangman's office seem a fleck 



The Deed, 173 

Upon you which you love not, they shall 
reck 
Not long of mere delay ; my brother here 
And I will bear down on them swiftly, cheer 
Their dark despair, and land them in another 

world ! 
The flag we bear is but above success unfurled ! " 



XIV. 



They cowered abashed and the touched Ad- 
miral said : 
"A few days more we will our course pursue 
And the near hour will give the land to 
view ; 
Such do I deem the present likelihead ; 
But if these last few hours are fully sped 

And only sky and water greet us, I 
Will change the sailing by your longings led." 
Then Pinzon once more raised his voice and 
high 

Above the wind and wave 
Sounded the message brave : 
" Forward ! Forward ! Forward ! " a clarion 
cry 
Circling around between the sea and sky. 
Whatever deeds darkened your latter days. 
That courage lifts you, Pinzon, past all praise ; 
Your haughty spirit gave its fire when needed most. 
And to those dauntless words reached ♦forth the 
enamored coast ! 



174 The Deed, 

XV. 

And later came the cry of land — perchance 
Because we often see the thing we long 
To see — and the wan Admiral raised the 
song 
Gloria in Excelsis — and his glance 
Wandered afar where the lit ripples dance ; 
Lo ! there it lay, purple and dim, a cloud 
Hardening to shore with the full-sailed ad- 
vance ; 
So they all hoped with their pale faces 
bowed 

And eyes straining and fierce 
Into the depths to pierce ; 
Continent was it ? or a thick-set crowd 
Of islands ? the close flight of birds avowed 
The nearing rest and harbor — thick they came,, 
Fluttered and chattered without let or blame ; 
Alack ! the land sank back into the abysses there ; 
The sighing waves beneath and round them nought 
but air ! 

XVI. 

Even the great heart faltered and at night 
He sat upon the deck and felt the gloom 
Falling around him like a mighty doom ; 
The faint glow on the waters left and right 
Hurt his tense mood and something shut his 
sight, 
And whether sleep or waking he knew not^ 



The Deed, 175 

Or whether it was dark or full of light, 
Or whether earth or other holier spot ; 
But a voice softly spake 
Nor did the silence break : 
" Have I not led you ? have you too forgot 
How from your childhood I have made your 
lot 
Mine own, and filled your life with me, and 

gave 
You toils I needed in my toils to save 
Man from himself ? And do you doubt and trem- 
ble now ? 
Nay, fear not ! Lo ! my certain morning girds your 
brow ! " 

XVII. 

He woke as one who might return from death 
Unto the scenes he knew beneath the sun 
And to far heights his thoughts began to 
run ; 
His dreams flew past the bounds where tar- 

rieth 
The mind of men, and over him the breath 

Of the Terrestrial Paradise sped soft, 
And he heard waking what the sweet mouth 
saith 
Of the pure Mother who sits throned aloft 
And crowned by her own Son ; 
Her radiant smile had won 
His heart to deep allegiance and had oft 



1/6 The Deed, 

Shone on his darkness and his soul had 
doffed 
Its sadness ; he could wait for many a morn 
With this clear vision ; sometimes when the 
scorn 
Seemed far too much to bear, he had heard mur- 
murs beat 
Within him, and he would the mystic tones repeat 

XVIII. 

Even as did the thunderous ones of old 

Who spoke what heaven itself poured through 

their lips, 
Striving to ward their country's near eclipse ; 
Ah, if the obscure Future had unrolled 
The stately pageant which she held in fold 
Of dimness, how his full heart must have 
leapt 
Unto the Hesperian Freedom's morning gold ; 
He would have known that his straight voy- 
age kept 

The road to Paradise 
Indeed, which earthly eyes 
Should see, and the salt tears which time 

had wept 
Must feel assuaged, for the Republic slept 
Her ante-natal slumber and light fell 
Beneath her trembling eyelids, her AlVs well ! 
Would ring above the expectant lands, and the last 

birth 
Of national powers arise in stature of her worth. 



The Deed. ly/ 

XIX. 

Perhaps some forefeel of his latter days 
Came over him, Fonseca's tireless hate, 
And all the ills that oft on greatness wait, 
And hardships of triumphant rugged ways ; 
And further on the world-wide lamping blaze 
Of gratitude which circled his bright name ; 
His last doubts vanished and his gaze 

Swept the wide ocean ; he could bear the 
blame 

Of the dull halting men, 
Who would withhold again 
The world from its advancement, and their 

shame 
Should be his answer when the victory came * 
He had not failed to hear when his thought 

spoke. 
He had not failed to read what message broke 
Upon him when the outer life was quieted 
And his deep heart and deeper truth were inly wed. 

XX. 

Was that a new star in the purple West ? 

Golden and flickering, quenched and full of 
fire. 

Like an uncertain strengthening desire ? 
It glows above the uttermost dark crest 
Of waters ; O mysterious palimpsest 

Of the round skies, will you not utter clear 
The secret you have shrouded terriblest 



1/8 The Deed. 

Amid the weltering ocean's vast and fear ? 
Is yonder flame the key 
Unto the mystery ? 
The last word in the message darkling here 
Which fills the meaning out, repaying drear 
And dim-eyed watching and grim anguishing 
Of the tense soul that now may rise and sing 
Its rich-voiced paean and the heart awake once more 
Into the joy of life from over-cloudings sore ? 



XXI. 



Is it a star ? its lambent tremulousness 
Melts in the dark around it ! now it pales 
And its soft lustre droops and faints and 
fails ; 
It breaks anew ! it comes like a caress 
From regions of divinest blessedness ! 

" Pedro Gutierrez, turn your sight afar ! 
What is yon shining of the floating tress ? " 
" I mark the pale far radiance of a star ! " 
" Oh, look again, again, 
And call the next of men ! 
Rodrigo of Segovia, past the bar 
Of many waves see you what flashings are ? " 
** Nay, good your grace, I see naught but the 

dark ! " 
Forth leaps to leeward the adventurous bark ! 
Lo ! there ! It shines again ! Master, it grows 

more bright ! 
All men upon your knees ! It is a light ! — a light I 



IV. 

THE NEW WORLD. 

Come thou whole self of Latter Man ! 
Come o'er thy realm of Good-and-Ill, 

And do, thou Self that sayest, / can^ 
And love, thou Self that sayest, J will ; 

And prove and know Time's worst and best, 
Thou tall young Adam of the West ! 

— Lanier. 



179 



THE NEW WORLD. 

I. 

T7 ASTWARD the dawn and to the west lay 
^ land ; 
Oh not Cathay, but a more virgin soil, 
And waiting for the newer faith and toil. 
Responsive to a more august command ; 
Nor here where breezes blew serene and bland 
And the warm sun enlarged from labors 
rude, 
Upon this river-fed and fruitful strand 

Where nothing harsh or stern dared to in- 
trude, 

Was the fair dome to rise, 
But under cloudier skies. 
In which the nobler reach and larger mood 
Should find themselves drawn on and subtly 
wooed 
To make their dwelling with the whole of man, 
Moulded unto the dream wherein began 
The passion of his life, for from no lesser source 
Flowed the wide stream of hope and urged its 
deepening course. 
i8i 



1 82 The New World. 

II. 
Once more a portent shone in Germany ; 
For there the Great Reformer rose and stood 
Firm-poised and strong against a very wood 
Of opposition ; no more should there be 
A wall betwixt the soul and verity ; 

In the wide spiritual realms there was no king 
Save God ; life had not striven to make men 
free 
Through the long years but to lose all and 
bring 

Again the servitude 
To a power once imbued 
With the pure love wherewith the seasons 

sing, 
But now athirst for rule, and carrying 
Base pomp into the sanctuary's mid ; 
He could no other do than he was bid 
By the deep voice within, and Spirit's rich domain. 
Seen by the eye of faith, lay clear revealed and plain. 

III. 

Also the soul confronted in its might 

The shows of all the world, and dared to say 
That there was naught beneath the eye of day 

Which fell not in its province, and its right 

To judge what truth was came not from the 
light 
Flickering alone in cloisters ; every man 

Stood in the hall of Good, and his own sight 
Read the true message that on high began ; 



The New World. 183 

The young strong cities rose, 
And yet another close 
Of music through the deepening chorus ran, 
And peaceful toil pressed forward in the van ; 
The castles frowned upon their rough hill sides, 
And the hurt villein looked upon the rides 
Of glittering lords and ladies with a half despair, 
Then left the plough and sought the city's freer air. 

IV. 

Through the rapt ages sped the dream and grew 
More certain with the pregnant flight of time 
And held the seasons in a richer rhyme ; 
From every star that shone and wind that blew 
The intelligence came, and all men surely knew 
That the deep self was height and lucid peak 
From whence the landscape took proportion 
due, 
And justice was the good they were to seek ; 
Mere trust in rule was dead, 
And it had basely led 
Into the gardens withered now and bleak 
Wherein too long mad kings had joyed to 
wreak 
Their wanton fancies and their wild caprice 
On men whose hands had given long life and 
lease 
To crime and shamelessness ; the flame-lit end was 

here ; 
Each man decreed himself, and sovereigned all the 
sphere. 



1 84 The New World, 

V. 

The thunder rolled above impetuous France, 
The earth shook in the storm, and savage 

cries 
Of the roused nations answered to the skies ; 
The thrones of Europe trembled, and the lance 
Of Freedom clove the darkness with the glance 

Of its divine illumination, yet 
Too fierce and strenuous was the grim advance. 
And by too many foes self-made beset ; 
So Victory spurned the earth 
As of too little worth 
For her long dwelling ; and the ground was 

wet 
With curdling dews the ways would fain 
forget ; 
The scornful sun looked down in pain and 

wrath 
On lands that trod the new-old hateful path ; 
A sigh came from the seas, and everywhere was 

heard 
The cry, " How long, O Freedom, is your reign 
deferred ! " 

VI. 

O sunset land ! to you the days have given 
The noblest labor, the severest meed. 
The Consummation and the Mighty Deed ! 
You shall from all cast off the manacles riven 
In the sad past, and time's old sorrows driven 



The New World. 185 

Before like leaves upon the autumn blast, 
And memories of crimes and wrongs unshriven, 
In the fierce light that your clear eyes will 
cast, 

Must seek the open grave 
From which no later wave 
Of shame or folly can revive them ; fast 
Shall they lie there until a springtime vast 
Sweeps over them and makes them part of life 
That has arisen full-sinewed from the strife, 
Your surging life, O Mother, triumph-voiced and 

great, 
Shaper of man's firm welfare. Builder of the State ! 

VII. 

What have you not that kisses of the sun 
Delight to fondle ? waters, large and fair, 
And golden regions of the variant air ; 
Both oceans find their daily loves undone 
Unless their songs within your ears are spun ; 
Your mountains soar above you, calm and 
tall, 
And lure until their silences have won 

Your hearts to spiritual heights which hold 
and thrall ; 

Your prairies like a bride 
Laugh to the blue skies wide 
With their abundance ; no fate can befall 
You save the further rich behest and call 
Of wisdomed bringing what you have in fee 



1 86 The New World. 

Unto all lands, mild peace and liberty, 
And nobler beauty, purer song, and juster sight 
Of the deep secrets hid within the Infinite Light ! 

VIII. 

O stern-browed Heroine far across the sea, 
Your daughter knows your blood within her 

veins, 
And hearkens to the ever-ringing strains 
Your voice has poured to honor Liberty ; 
Her have you worshipped and you still must 
be 
Helper and guide upon the luminous way ; 
What you have done to make the nations free, 
Believing ever in the sun-filled day 
That shall pervade at length 
Mankind in all its strength, 
Named you among those chief round whom 

the play 
Of forces bringing triumph shed the ray 
Of the result divine ; we feel you here 
Within us, and the hour cannot appear, 
O England, which will not turn youwards and re- 
peat 
How your grand life's stream flows within us pure 
and sweet. 

IX. 

The secret found at last ! obedience 
To nothing alien but the very God 



The New World, 187 

Fluent throughout the majestic period ; 
The soul of man and life one stream whose 

whence 
Is in the light of Good's pre-eminence ; 

The heart of each co-equal with the whole 
That through it flows in joyous turbulence ; 
The soul of man one self-divided soul, 
Whose parts innumerous are 
Conjoined as light to star, 
A star whose beams around it speed and roll. 
Each beam all light and true as steel to pole 
Unto its source of pure yet mixed flame. 
Each beam all light reflected to the same 
Glory and fervor whence its dreams have ever been, 
And fleeting back from being's utmost verge and 
sin ! 



X. 



O heart of time and secret of the world 
Revealed at last beneath the happy sun, 
O wide-branched blossom of the ages won 
Into vast growth, since the first dew lay pearled 
Upon the first leaf to the light uncurled. 

Since sense of spiritual search was anywhere. 
You have gleamed forth, and ray by ray un- 
furled 
Your crescent shining to the ambient air ; 
Now we behold you sure. 
The spirit and the lure 
Of all endeavor, not a mere nation fair. 



1 88 The New World, 

Not one bright flower, but, clustered rich 
and rare, 
A flower of flowers, a petalled sisterhood, 
The torch-like centre of the heavy wood 
Of history, giving light upon the living past 
And chiefest glow on upward-leading pathways 
cast ! 



XI. 



In days of Greece whose eyes prophetic saw 
The spiritual sphere disclosed, and whose 

life rose 
With youthful ardor past the wizard shows 
Of sense into that region of clear awe, 
A multifloral state which drank the law 

Of one strong stem half stayed the night 
that fell 
Too soon, and charmed the savage winds from 
flaw, 
Nearing its burst, to silence ; but too well 
For the rathe hour was planned 
The interlinked command ; 
Also the mountaineers who feel the spell 
Of their wild land's enchanting miracle 
Have woven a light of rule whose distinct hues 
Conjoined have been a beacon to diffuse 
A hope among the watchers that the delaying morn 
Would surely come when the Republic should be 
born. 



The New World, 189 

XII. 

Now the Republic has indeed beheld 

The vapors vanish from the western seas, 
And day's young magic flash across the leas 
Which the wrapt fancy of the climes of eld 
Longed for and prayed ; those tense desires 
unquelled 
By disappointment, merciless defeat, 
Have sprung from every overthrow to weld 
Anew the dream for which their passion beat ; 
Of the Discoverer's heart 
Those purposes had part, 
And led him forth with inexhausted heat 
To make strong Europe's hope the New 
World's feat ; 
What the worn past has been anhungered for. 
Holding all action its sure servitor. 
The form of rule to whose large beauty men must 

kneel 
Appears, a State of States, the Nationed Common- 
weal ! 

XIII. 

Not tower but city crowned is your grand brow, 
Your limbs prodigious in the strength of 
youth. 

And in your eyes the awfulness of truth, 
Not mail-clad, bringerof the olive-bough. 
Holy and tender, with lips sweet from vow 



190 The New World, 

Of help to all men in all continents, 
And gracious hands of blessing to endow 
With life the hopes to which all time con- 
sents ; 

The thunder of the mirth 
Of the awakening earth 
Hailed you from mountains with their snowy- 
tents, 
And utmost shores the scarce-sailed sea 
indents ; 
At night the passion of the stars looked down 
And laughed to see you, and the sombre frown 
That gloomed the past-rid lands faded in joy which 

came 
From you, O mightiest-thewed, and source of 
spiritual flame ! 

XIV. 

Yet was the struggle hard ; not a mere gift 
Is the great strength which leads to master- 

dom ; 
Wisdom and just assurance only come 
With victory over sordid ills that drift 
Around us, and the courages that lift 

Into the high are their own best reward. 
The agonies were hers which burn and sift, 
And her blind powers sometimes held vain 
accord 

With those whose scornful boast 
Was that they harmed her most ; 



The New World. 191 

Around her beat the many-headed horde 
Of envy, malice, hatred, and self-scored 
She lay with bleeding wounds ; the battle's 

rage 
But made her firmer, and the dearer wage 
Of nobler reverence, self-control, and sight of good, 
Was hers as she emerged from that dense earlier 
wood. 



XV. 



One stain remained upon her brow, the mark 
Of sin against the soul of brotherhood ; 
She who was Freedom's, what fate abject 
could 
Ally her with the baser crew whose dark 
Control plucked selfhood from the crouched 
and stark 
Corrupted ones, debased from man to thing, 
And wreaking on their sterile brains the cark 
And care which are the signs of travailing 
With birth of loftier will ? 
Yet the hour came to spill 
Upon the ground her life-blood and to bring 
Her dearest to the altar that the spring 
Might be spring unto all ; with forehead bare, 
Washed clean of the defilement, miracle-fair ; 
She stands, the shadow in her eyes of anguish fled, 
.Strengthened and conscious of herself, her hopes, 
her dead ! 



192 The Nezv World. 



XVI. 



But newer griefs assail her, lust of gold, 

The greed that would have all the world its 

own 
And silences its ear to sound of moan 
Falling from lips of victim, savage hold 
Of temporal goods, that grows an uncontrolled 

And never-ending madness, these grim ills 
Sprang up around her, taunting, scornful, bold; 
Whither have fled the stern and potent wills 
Who knew to curb the brood 
Of evil-doers rude ? 
Shine forth with glance of perfect scorn 

which kills, 
O Titaness, and from the hand that tills 
These monstrous fields, strike the ill-gotten 

gain, 
Be loud upon them and transform, restrain. 
Show forth the double crime, the land nor grows 

nor lives, 
Which learns not how to steer 'twixt such alter- 
natives. 

XVII. 

Why should the hungry poor groan in your 
borders, 
And toil raise gaunt and angry hands of 

appeal 
For wiser guerdon from the commonweal ? 



The New World, 1 93 

Shall you be blamed like those whom the 

recorders 
Write in the Book of Grief as vain awarders 
Of the great good which is the lot of all ? 
Nay, Mother, help ; surely your deep skill 
orders 
Your realm so that the noblest issues fall 
Unto your diverse sons ? 
What lack of memory runs 
Through your tense soul that you should 

fail to call 
Your note of warning through your land's 
wide hall ? 
Graceless to grasp for more than is of use, 
And give to greed a limitless abuse ; 
Find way to make your equal sons by right and law 
Partakers of yourself and sharers of your awe ! 

XVIII. 

Lo ! at the portal stands the Angel Love, 
The morning of her presence casts before 
An opulent radiance from shore to shore^ 

Responsive to the light of life above, 

And the roused land grows cognizant thereof ; 
She stands upon the threshold, she would 
serve 

What her dear heart can yearn for not enough. 

Fair sights from which her firm eyes will not 

swerve ; 

She would cast out forever 
13 



194 The New World. 

The demon who can sever 
The hands of men, make her own life the 

nerve 
Of all familiar acts, hold in its curve 
Of glad ascent, pure deeds and strong desires, 
Tread under foot fast-smouldering envy's fires, 
Withhold from grasp of aught that better feeds 

another 
The strength that is in truth as name to all a 
brother. 

XIX. 

The land thrills with an impulse as of spring, 
New fountains bubble underneath the soil. 
New dreams of peace float through the night 
of toil, 
New melodies begin to soar and sing 
Within the regions of grim suffering ; 

Unto a newer height the goddess leads, 
Where brighter blooms their sweeter fragrance 
fling 
Over warm reaches of benignant meads ; 
The path before us dim 
Lies in the twilight's rim ; 
Soon the new sun will cast from him the 

weeds 
That yet enshroud him, and a day that 
breeds 
A deeper love vanquish the dark anew, 
A spiritual day with skies of singing blue, 



The New World, 195 

A sea of spirit isled with souls around whom flow 
The everlasting streams full of meridian glow. 



XX. 

Fronting the abyss with smile and brow serene, 
The new man comes, self-poised, self-equal, 

firm. 
Not held within the narrowing senses' term, 
Not bound in chains of things but touched 

and seen ; 
Faith opens outlooks past the vaporous screen 
Of time, and the whole world lies bathed in 
light ; 
His courage is uplifting and his keen 

Ardors endow the weak with his life's 
height ; 

The stars, his charioteers. 
Bring truths from utmost spheres ; 
All fears lie dead before him, thought and 

might 
Obey him, and his sun is love and right ; 
Victory calls him hers, and lofty joy. 
The night and day vicissitudes employ 
For him, the sea and air are subject to his nod. 
And his divining eyes gaze up and look on God ! 

XXI. 

Here in these waiting days I raise my song. 
Catching far gleams from what is sure to be ; 



196 The New World. 

As one who hears the unsighted sonorous 
sea, 
And the live pulses in him fiercely long 
To mix with those glad pulses and the strong 

World-circling flow, I reach forth to the hour 
When subjugate the old tyranny of wrong 
Will range itself beside love's conquering 
power ; 

These accents poor and faint 
But dimly limn and paint 
The centuries-crescent aloe in mid flower ; 
Ah, that a poet of the supreme dower, 
A poet such as earlier periods had, 
Or full-voiced singer as will surely glad 
The expanses of the future would build up the 

theme. 
And fashion forth the wonder of the truthful 
dream ! 

XXII. 

Be glad, O land, fling your bright banners 
free. 

Rejoice as never land rejoiced yet, 

All injuries forgive, all woes forget. 
Send your acclaim from summer sea to sea, 
Here at this tide happy and proud are we ! 

Honor his heart with far heard gratitude. 
Who knew you through the gloom and mystery, 

Which held and swayed you from the first 
indued ! 



The New World, i<^'j 

Let not one voice upraise 
An accent other than praise ! 
O sleepless vigor with intent imbued 
To erect a peace in place of old world feud! 
Bring from the fruitful south and stalwart north 
Your numberless array of treasures forth ! 
Build the white halls of beauty and within them store 
Marvels of thought and hand from every clime and 
shore ! 



XXII. 

Also call forth from the high-laboring earth 
The wisest and the farthest reaching minds, 
The manifold insight that forever finds 
The deepening truths of more embracing worth, 
Who are the masters of the encircling mirth 

In which ideas rise and move and dwell, 
Who watch in spiritual skies the pauseless birth 
Of stars whose lordships are invincible ; 
Not in the pompous past 
Has astroscope been cast 
Of richer presage, and on no time fell 
A lovelier laughter, more enduring spell ; 
The earth is harnessed to the care of man, 
The air will soon upbear his caravan ; 
Towards the bold conquests hearts and eyes are 

fixed and bent, 
Fresh fragrant winds from the far vales are blown 
and sent. 



198 The New World, 

XXIV. 

Has Beauty fled the earth ? Had Greece alone 

Or the great age when from the painted wall 

The thunders of the judgment seemed to fall 

The charm to win her ? shall the sculptured 

stone 
Or forest pile of marble, luminous grown 

With the pure sense of love, arise no more ? 
Nay, half her magic has not yet been shown, 
And she will glow far dearer than before ! 
Nay, if she only wear 
Her uncrowned floating hair, 
No more a queen, but woman to adore, 
Yet must her dreams be truer, farther soar ; 
Sweetest of messengers from the far skies. 
The untrembling light of truth within her eyes, 
The veilless soul of man as ne'er in ages past 
Shall by her touch in finer, fairer forms be cast ! 

XXV. 

The Faiths to whom were given the sacred keys 
Of heaven, and who by different mountain 

ways 
Led upward to the self-same goal of praise, 
Each deeming that the opened mysteries 
Were hers alone, and that the golden breeze 
Blown through the tree of life touched but 
such brows 
As bore her sign, shall mingle hands and seize 



The New World, 199 

With tears the illumination which allows 
The achievement unto each 
For which earth's prayers beseech ; 
Unto the one white Light arise all vows, 
The one white Radiance punctually endows 
The creatures everywhere with his own life, 
And joy which hath calm purity for wife 
Shines in the many-gated city when the song 
Resounds to greet each wayworn and victorious 
throng. 

XXVI. 

And Supreme Thought who calls the world 

her own. 

And passes things and life in full review. 

And gains the old truth that is ever new, 

Freedom's best guide and counsellor hath 

grown ; 
There are no fields which her seed hath not 
sown, 
There are no heights which her feet may 
not climb. 
There are no dreams which must not hers be 
known. 
There are no glooms for her in any time ; 
Arranger of all life. 
And mistress over strife. 
She sets the stars in melody and rhyme. 
And makes the periods with each other 
chime ; 



200 The New World. 

Pouring her hopes into the dark recesses, 
Thridding her way through the vague wilder- 
nesses, 
She fashions, rules, designs, and dwells within the 

Which is the heart of hearts, and very sight of 
sight. 

XXVII. 

O fair republics of the warmer sun, 

O sister states rejoice amid your flowers, 
And take with us the higher-hearted hours 
That point to destinies but half begun 
And grandeurs from the urgent future won ; 

Join hands with us in this our triumph tide, 
Send forth the tones in deep-based unison 
With Freedom's chorus which is close allied 
To the rapt song that springs 
From planetary rings ; 
Here on the stormy ocean's hither side 
We all will say that room must be denied 
To aught that savors of a king or crown ; 
And you, our sister, underneath the frown 
Of colder skies, take part in our mid revelry, 
And greeting send to her across the southern sea ! 

XXVIII. 

Into the future one more forward glance ! 
Raise your great brows, O Titaness, and call 



The New World. 201 

Over to Europe's millions ; let from your 
lips fall 
The sound that bursts the agonizing trance, 
The message that evokes the swift advance ; 
Bid war disarm, and cast his helmet down 
And show within his wrathless eyes' expanse 
The love which lurks behind his fleeting 
frown ; 

Bring nearer the glad hour 
Of congregated power ! 
Speed you the federated world, the crown 
Of time's endeavor ! speed ! so hill and 
town 
May answer back the rich intelligence. 
The song that ravishes both soul and sense, 
The friendship of the nations, and the end attained 
For which the tears were shed, the ground with 
blood was stained ! 

XXIX. 

And those who are the ages* children yet, 
The wandering tribes who vaguely dream 

and brood. 
Held in the bondage of an earth-born mood, 
By foes within and foes without beset, 
Let not the pity of the world forget ; 

Shed light through their grim darkness and 
uplift 
To generous manhood ; where the woods are 
wet 



202 The New World, 

With dew that is not morning's tremulous 
gift, 

Bring strength and lamplike peace 
Whose lustre must increase 
Over the earth ; with footsteps light and 

swift 
Let the soft influence fleet ; into the drift 
Lead the cleansed streams of hope and trust 

and thought 
Until the conquest is more surely wrought, 
And love and good fulfill the time, and everywhere 
A freeman raises hand and brow unto the air ! 

XXX. 

One vision more ! the spiritual city lies 
Beneath the sun ; the all-subduing love 
Inhabits there as in the realms above ; 
As lordly as the blue unclouded skies 
Life passes, and the mighty dawn's surmise 

Reaches completion, and the deeps on deeps 

Of spirit which are seen alone of eyes 

Whose watch is kin to power that never sleeps 

Are more and more revealed ; 

The innermost heavens unsealed 

Comfort the heart where no more anguish 

weeps. 
And open fields which faith forever reaps ; 
The truth shines everywhere and strenuous 

right 
Souls every deed with its transcendent light ; 



The New World, 203 

The winds are song itself, the hours are radiance- 
fleet, 
And fear of death is not, and every toil is sweet ! 

XXXI. 

God's Thought rose clear before him and he 
said : 
" Lo ! I have fashioned for mine eyes to see 
The mighty miracle of Liberty ; 
Unto my will have many wills been wed, 
With mine own light have lesser lives been fed, 
With mine own being filled and wondrous 
fire, 
The increasing light by which all hearts are led 
Unto the summit of supreme desire ; 
From glowering suns and stars, 
From elemental wars. 
From interflux of powers and savage ire 
That bid the engirding night pause and ad- 
mire. 
From anguish and despair, the wordless brood 
That fills the expanse of forests primal-rude, 
I have brought forth that mine unenvying soul 

might know 
The lofty love wherewith but Freedom's self can 
glow ! " 

THE END. 



